Intraoral Radiographs Are Necessary for Every Dental Patient

Vickie Byard, CVT, VTS (Dentistry), veterinary technician dentistry specialist at PetED Veterinary Education and Training Resources, explains why intraoral radiographs are necessary for dental exams.

"Studies have been done on patients that have had absolutely no pathology in their mouth. So, let's say there is no tartar and there's no reason to even put that animal on the table, and yet they have, and they've taken full-mouth X-rays. And they have found in—I think it's 30 to 40% of the cases depending on the dog and cat—they found things that were significant enough that needed to be treated; and this is when we didn't see anything clinically in the exam room. On cases where we knew there was something going on, full-mouth X-rays actually revealed that there's anywhere from 30 to 50% more stuff than we even knew was going on.

So, we're really giving the client the idea that if we're doing dentistry without extractions when they leave, and they pay their bill that everything is treated, chances are 30 to 50% of the time they're not.

I think since we all go into it with the intention of complete healing, there's only one way to do that and that's with intraoral radiographs."