Intraoral Cameras

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Dr. Feuerstein asks: Are Intraoral cameras still useful? With the advent of high resolution, low cost digital cameras, many practitioners feel that they do not need intraoral cameras.

These units cost between $1,500 and $8,000 and give lower resolution images than the digital cameras. You can surely take a photo of a full arch and zoom in on a specific tooth close enough to see fractures or other conditions. Why are manufacturers still designing and marketing intraoral cameras? Which models are useful? Have there been any new advances?

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Comments

7 Responses to “Intraoral Cameras”

  1. talal on April 11th, 2006 5:17 pm

    i agree with you dr.feuerstein and i will take the opportunity to ask about intraoral sensors,if somebody used them and found them a must ,

  2. Arnie Loel on April 11th, 2006 6:13 pm

    Why are interoral cameras still so expensive. The price of digital cameras have come down to reasonable levels why not digital cameras? As usual professionals and their patients are being over charged which results in under utilization of the technology. I think I will get a digital camera. Nikon P1 for $300 and use my mirror to give me the views I need.

  3. Ertan Yusufoglu on April 12th, 2006 3:53 am

    Hi from Turkey,

    I use Nikon Coolpix3700 for archive but also I have a intra-oral camera. Here in Turkey we use intra-oral cameras for making show. Because patients want to see something.

  4. Anonymous on April 15th, 2006 2:29 pm

    Intraoral camera is not important for dentist, but for the patient it is very important. They can see your work. I always show my work to my patient (before and after). If you can’t clean properly, do a good restoration etc. DO NOT use intraoral camera.

  5. Paul Feuerstein on April 18th, 2006 10:00 am

    I am not sure what you meant in the last post. If you are doing treatment that you would not show to your patients, that is not a good sign. Of course if things don’t come out as expected, it is not a bad idea to show the patient what you tried to do and were unable to complete. That has been very postitively accepted by my patients in those situations, and of course, covered me for informing the patient.

  6. Paul Feuerstein on April 18th, 2006 10:12 am

    As far as the expense, these are hand built limited production units. Digital cameras are made by the thousands in factories. The intraoral cameras are also using a fiberoptic bundle which is at least a couple hundred dollars as well as the light box, etc. Are they worth $4-5000? Not really, but part of what you are paying is for the R&D that went into the product and the support required to keep the company in busniness. This also holds true for digital xray sensors.

  7. TabathaOster on May 18th, 2006 12:03 pm

    Awesome blog. Peace out until next time TabathaOster

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