Your Dentist Is Killing Your Children

If a dentist says "we're going to shoot your child's skull with a cone-beam," you wouldn't be the least bit concerned, would you?

Because children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to radiation, doctors three years ago mounted a national campaign to protect them by reducing diagnostic radiation to only those levels seen as absolutely necessary.

It is a message that has resonated in many clinics and hospitals. Yet there is one busy place where it has not: the dental office.

[...]

One popular new brand of braces has helped cone-beam sales because it requires 3-D images, which doctors can obtain using either a cone-beam scanner with radiation, or a digital camera without it. Many orthodontists opt for radiation, because it is quicker.

Even those troubled by the widening use of cone-beam technology acknowledge that by itself, the risk from a single scan is relatively small. But patients often get more than one scan, and the lifetime risk increases with each exposure. Without a clear benefit, they say, there is only risk.

“So let me ask a question to the mother of a prospective orthodontic patient,” said Dr. Stuart C. White, former chairman of oral radiology at the UCLA School of Dentistry. “Would you like me to use a tool that is entirely safe — a camera — to record the position of your child’s teeth, or another method that may rarely cause cancer so that we can save time?”

[...]

The cone-beam business is lucrative for manufacturers and dentists. According to one industry estimate, more than 3,000 scanners and about 30 different models have been sold, at prices up to $250,000.

Dentists, some of whom charge several hundred dollars per scan, can profit by owning their own machines. “More profit per unit chair time,” promises Imaging Sciences, the cone-beam manufacturer.

[...]

And then there is the “wow” factor, said Dr. Terry Sellke, an orthodontist in Illinois.

“Kids love to see that 3-D image,” Dr. Sellke said in a Webcast sponsored by Imaging Sciences. “They can go into our computer and look at their skull.” Another orthodontist talked about coloring 3-D skulls in green and purple. “Fun for the kids,” he said.

Radiation: "fun for the kids." What kid wouldn't want to glow in the dark and maybe grow a second head to show off to his friends?

[NYT]