U.K. Dentist Seeks Answers to Radiation issue; Finds Answer in Helsinki

By any standards, Dr. Colin Campbell has a unique dental operation. It’s not a practice, it’s an academy. The Campbell Academy. Located in Nottingham, U.K., he has 9 associates, 2 research PhDs and offers extensive dental education and training courses.

Dr. Campbell has worked as a dentist in the United Kingdom for several years and has had experience with virtually every brand of dental equipment. He knows the international dental industry inside and out. But there was one thing that plagued him: the lack of reliable information on the radiation doses emitting from dental imaging CBCT units.

“I have found it increasingly difficult, in fact near on impossible, to get any reasonable dose data from the companies themselves that I am able to use to compare the machines before I buy. This is a huge problem because it really feels to me now like the companies are actually being evasive in the way they present their dose data,” he wrote on his blog last fall.

Radiation exposure, including medical and dental imaging sources, is a concern among all health care professionals as it is associated with a risk for cancer.

In 2018, Campbell had purchased a Planmeca ProMax Classic and Juha Koivista, who is a post-PhD physicist and research scientist based at the University of Helsinki, came to install it. While Juha was at Campbell’s practice, they decided to measure radiation doses of the imaging units Campbell had on site, including the one being replaced by the ProMax. Campbell had previously asked all the manufacturers for information on radiation doses, but none replied.

“I asked Planmeca and they sent their head physicist to meet with me,” he said.

This office visit resulted in a new relationship for Dr. Campbell, that included a visit to the Planmeca Oy Headquarters in Helsinki, Finland. Dr. Campbell was able to meet with several senior managers, engineers, and product specialists while in Finland and that knowledge, and what comes out of it, will be shared with his colleagues and future visitors to his Academy in the U.K.

Campbell acquired some valuable information during that trip to Finland.

“I found that one of the most important radiation measurements and figures you can derive is called factor of merit,” he wrote. The factor of merit is the contrast versus the noise ratio (squared) divided by the effective dose. This figure gives you a quality of image against the dose required to provide that image and might be the most important figure for anyone looking to purchase a CBCT machine. I had never seen this figure before, in fact, I’d never heard of it, never ever from the manufacturers.”

To learn more about radiation dosages and Planmeca’s Low Dose Imaging principles, visit https://www.planmeca.com/na/ultra-low-dose.

To learn more about Dr. Campbell, and read his post describing why he purchased a Planmeca ProMax® 3D imaging unit, click here: https://www.campbellacademy.co.uk/blog/two-discoveries-part-one-juha