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In Taiwan, there are very few dental radiology curricula in medical radiation education system. This study assessed the participants' learning outcomes after finishing the dental radiology course for the continuing education of medical radiation technologists in Taiwan. This study used the questionnaire survey to evaluate the participants' learning outcomes after finishing the dental radiology course for the continuing education of medical radiation technologists in Taiwan. In this study, 85 participants filled out the questionnaires completely after finishing the dental radiology course. The majority of participants agreed that dental radiology courses were rare in the medical radiation school curricula and the continuing education courses of medical radiation technologists. Moreover, most of participants found this course to be helpful in raising their basic knowledge about the dental radiology, their attitude towards the dental radiology, and their interest in further learning of the dental radiology. They were satisfied with the courses. The degree of agreement for each question was high with all the mean scores for each question being between 3.87 and 4.61. The numbers (rates) of respondents who answered as agree were between 58 (68.24%) and 84 (98.82%). The dental radiology course for the continuing education of medical radiation technologists is found to increase the participants' basic knowledge about the dental radiology, and their awareness and understanding of the radiation protection in dental radiography. Thus, this model can be further used for the dental radiology course for the continuing education of medical radiation technologists in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Dental film mounting is an essential but time-consuming task in dental radiography, with manual methods often prone to errors. This study aims to develop a deep learning (DL) model for accurate automated classification and mounting of both intraoral and extraoral dental radiography. Method: The present study employed a total of 22,334 intraoral images and 1,035 extraoral images to train the model. The performance of the model was tested on an independent internal dataset and two external datasets from different institutes. Images were categorized into 32 tooth areas. The VGG-16, ResNet-18, and ResNet-101 architectures were used for pretraining, with the ResNet-101 ultimately being chosen as the final trained model. The model's performance was evaluated using metrics of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score. Additionally, we evaluated the influence of misalignment on the model's accuracy and time efficiency. Results: The ResNet-101 model outperformed VGG-16 and ResNet-18 models, achieving the highest accuracy of 0.976, precision of 0.969, recall of 0.984, and F1-score of 0.977 (p < 0.05). For intraoral images, the overall accuracy remained consistent across both internal and external datasets, ranging from 0.963 to 0.972, without significant differences (p = 0.348). For extraoral images, the accuracy consistently achieved the highest value of 1 across all institutes. The model's accuracy decreased as the tilt angle of the X-ray film increased. The model achieved the highest accuracy of 0.981 with correctly aligned films, while the lowest accuracy of 0.937 was observed for films exhibiting severe misalignment of ± 15° (p < 0.001). The average time required for the tasks of image rotation and classification for each image was 0.17 s, which was significantly faster than that of the manual process, which required 1.2 s (p < 0.001). Conclusion: This study demonstrated the potential of DL-based models in automating dental film mounting with high accuracy and efficiency. The proper alignment of X-ray films is crucial for accurate classification by the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Taiwan, dental radiology has a long history of development. However, there are very few dental radiology curricula in Taiwan's dental education system. This study explored preliminarily the dental radiology course designed for dentist continuing education in Taiwan. This study used the method of dental radiology education survey by questionnaire to evaluate participating dentists' learning outcomes by assessing their perceptions of the dental radiology course. In this study, 117 participating dentists filled out the questionnaires completely after the class of dentist continuing education. The results showed that most of participating dentists agreed that dental radiology courses were rare in dental school curriculum and dentist continuing education. Moreover, most of participating dentists found this course to be helpful in raising their basic knowledge and skill about dental radiology, their attitude towards dental radiology, and their interest in further learning of dental radiology. They were satisfied with the course. The degree of agreement for each question was high, and all the mean scores for each question were between 4.53 and 4.77. The numbers (rates) of respondents who answered as agree were between 105 and 113 (between 89.74% and 96.58%). The dental radiology course contributed to an increase in dentists' basic knowledge and skill about dental radiology and their awareness and understanding of the importance of dental radiology. Considering the effectiveness of the dental radiology course on dentists' basic knowledge/skill and attitude of dental radiology, this model shows promise for further use in dentist continuing education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Taiwan, the dental radiology has a history of more than 100 years. However, medical radiation schools or teaching hospitals have not yet established a set of standard learning content for dental radiology internship. We used the observational method and dental radiology teaching survey to explore the connotation of clinical dental radiology education for medical radiation students in Taiwan. There were 64 dental departments of hospitals with their own independent dental radiology departments in Taiwan in 2022. Among them, 58 (90.63%) were in the teaching hospitals. Of the 58 dental radiology departments in the teaching hospitals, 40 (68.97%) had medical radiation interns in their dental radiology departments. There was a complete set of seven training items for dental radiology internship. The mean training items in the medical centers (4.94) was significantly higher than that in the regional hospital (3.9) (P < 0.05). No matter what level of hospital, it is the most common way to implement the training mode with preclinical exercises and then clinical practice. In Taiwan, the current status of dental radiology teachers in the teaching hospital is indeed seriously insufficient. It is necessary to establish a standard dental radiology education system, including setting one common dental radiology subject for medical radiation students, and the relevant regulations to formulate the basic requirements of the training items and training hours for dental radiology internship. Thus, medical radiation interns can acquire the operation skills related to dental X-ray machines after completing the internship training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Taiwan, the formal education for cultivating medical radiation technologists began in 1965. However, there are very few dental radiology curricula in Taiwan's medical radiology schools. We investigated mainly the appearance of dental radiology education for medical radiology students in Taiwan. We used documentary analysis, a survey of dental radiology education, and secondary data analysis in this study to find the appearance of Taiwan's dental radiology education for medical radiology students. There were currently ten medical radiology schools. Among them, five offered independent curricula in their subject schedules and another five had dental radiology education included in their general medical radiology curricula. Of the 53 dental radiology teaching hospitals, 21 (39.62%) were medical centers and 25 (47.17%) were regional hospitals, and these large hospitals were concentrated in the northern region of Taiwan. These large dental radiology teaching hospitals offered more training hours of dental radiology internship for medical radiology students and had a higher availability for the medical radiology students. In Taiwan, the current status of dental radiology curricula in the medical radiology schools is indeed seriously insufficient. A dental radiology education system should be established in the future, including the innovative dental radiology curricula developed for medical radiology students and more dental radiology curricula designed for dental students. This in turn can create new career options for medical radiology students and new practice directions for medical radiation technologists, and then expand their potential involvement in dental radiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Taiwan, there is no independent licensing system for dental radiation technologists. A licensed medical radiation technologist who engages in dental radiology is the so-called dental radiation technologist. This study explored mainly the profile of dental radiation technologists in Taiwan. This study used the methods of documentary analysis, dental radiation manpower survey, and the secondary data analysis to find the profile of dental radiation technologists in Taiwan. There were currently 59 dental radiology departments and 101 dental radiation technologists (29 males and 72 females) in 57 hospitals and their branches. Of the 101 dental radiation technologists, 56 worked in the medical centers, 28 in the regional hospitals, and 17 in the district hospitals. More than half of the dental radiation technologists were concentrated in the medical centers (55.45%, 56/101) or the northern region of Taiwan (57.43%, 58/101), especially in the northern medical centers (30.69%, 31/101). In Taiwan, the manpower of dental radiation technologists is insufficient, and dental radiation technologists usually work in the dental departments of the hospitals. A large number of clinic dentists lack dental radiation technologists to assist in dental radiology works and the clinic dentists have to perform the dental radiology works by themselves. Therefore, a dental radiology education system should be established to design innovative dental radiology courses for radiological technology students. This in turn can provide a new practice direction for medical radiation technologists and expand their potential participation in the field of dental radiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/purpose: Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is a useful device in creating 3-dimensional images in the examining area of dentistry and is one of the most common clinical methods in detecting second mesiobuccal (MB2) canals in maxillary molars. The aim of this in vitro study was to compare the image quality of the small field of view (FOV) CBCT with different rotation arcs and scanning speeds in the use of detecting root canals.Methods: A dentate human skull was scanned in Morita 3D Accuitomo 170 with 4 × 4 cm FOV under 5 mA and 90 kVp. Two different rotation arcs (360° and 180°) and three different scanning modes (slow-speed mode, standard mode and high-speed mode) combined into six different groups. Five different levels of axial sections were selected from each group. Five endodontic specialists rated the image quality by focusing on the sharpness of the MB2 canal of the upper right first molar and the surrounding structures.Results: Despite the rotation arcs, all the observers gave excellent ratings to images taken with slow-speed mode. The high-speed mode taken with 360° and 180° got the second lowest and the lowest ratings, respectively. Under the same scanning speed, the rotation arc did not have a significant difference in image quality.Conclusion: Slow-speed mode is inevitable in maintaining adequate image quality during taking CBCT. However, endodontists can use the half rotation mode to significantly reduce radiation dose, exposure time, and still maintain sufficient image quality for root canal anatomy assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]