The usage of dental cone-beam computed tomography during the COVID-19 pandemic (from 2020 to 2022): A survey of a regional hospital in the northern Taiwan

Feng-Chou Cheng; Yu-Hung Li; Yuh-Fen Wei; Chien-Jung Chen; Mu-Hsiung Chen; Chun-Pin Chiang

doi:10.1016/j.jds.2023.10.032

The usage of dental cone-beam computed tomography during the COVID-19 pandemic (from 2020 to 2022): A survey of a regional hospital in the northern Taiwan

J Dent Sci. 2024 Apr;19(2):795-803. doi: 10.1016/j.jds.2023.10.032. Epub 2023 Nov 7.

Authors

Feng-Chou Cheng^{1

2

3}, Yu-Hung Li⁴, Yuh-Fen Wei⁵, Chien-Jung Chen⁶, Mu-Hsiung Chen⁷, Chun-Pin Chiang^{7

8

9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Chia-Te Dental Clinic, New Taipei City, Taiwan.
² School of Life Science, College of Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
³ Science Education Center, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Radiology Technology, Lotung Poh-Ai Hospital, Yilan, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Medical Imaging, National Taiwan University Hospital Hsin-Chu Branch, Hsinchu County, Taiwan.
⁶ Department of Nuclear Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁷ Department of Dentistry, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁸ Graduate Institute of Clinical Dentistry, School of Dentistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁹ Graduate Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁰ Department of Dentistry, Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Hualien, Taiwan.

Abstract

Background/purpose: In Taiwan, cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) has already widely used in dentistry. This study explored preliminarily the usage of dental CBCT during the COVID-19 pandemic (from 2020 to 2022) through a survey of a regional hospital in the northern Taiwan.

Materials and methods: This study used purposeful sampling to select a regional hospital in the northern Taiwan to survey its usage of dental CBCT during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results: In the surveyed hospital, the number of patients' visits for the usage of dental CBCT increased from 355 in 2020 to 449 in 2021 and further to 488 in 2022 with a growth rate of 37.46 %, while the growth rates compared to the previous year were 26.48 % in 2021 and 8.69 % in 2022, respectively. There were a total of 1292 patients' visits for the dental CBCT. The ages of the 1292 patients (573 males and 719 females) ranged from 4 to 89 years. The 50-59-year age group had the highest number of patients' visits (371, 28.72 %), followed in a descending order by the 60-69-year (293, 22.68 %) and 40-49-year (206, 15.94 %) age groups. The dental CBCT was used mainly for the assessment of dental implants, accounting for 1148 (78.85 %) of the total 1456 irradiations.

Conclusion: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the medical services for dental care and treatments in Taiwan are still maintained normally, and the dental CBCT is also used widely and popularly by the dental patients of all ages, various dental procedures, and various dental specialties.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Cone-beam computed tomography; Dental implants; Dentistry.