Dental x-rays enable us to see inside a tooth. This quick guide shows you some of what we see and what we are looking for.
This is an x-ray of the back teeth on the upper arch. With x-rays, you can only see the hard tissues, such as the teeth and bone but you cannot see the soft tissues, such as the gums, lips, or nerves. This enables us to differentiate between normal tooth and bone and diseased tooth and bone.
The green arrows are pointing to the bone. The blue arrows are pointing to the healthy enamel. The red arrows are pointing to the pulp, where the nerve and blood vessels are located for a tooth. The dentin layer is between the enamel and the pulp. The purple arrows are pointing to areas of decay, which show up as a dark spot on x-rays. Bacteria have attacked the tooth and have dissolved the enamel and entered the dentin. The decay must be removed before it dissolves the dentin and enters the pulp. If the decay enters the pulp, the tooth will require either a root canal or an extraction.
