Future prospects for dental cone beam CT imaging

Cone beam CT (CBCT) has been widely accepted as an imaging tool for a variety of dental and nondental applications. Although dental CBCT has evolved considerably in the last decade, there is still a lot of room for optimization of this modality at different levels. In this perspective, an overview is given of various hardware and software innovations that could be implemented in CBCT imaging in the foreseeable future. Some have already been applied to clinical practice but require further validation; others are being commonly applied by other imaging modalities and could be adapted for use in dental CBCT. The overview covers the x-ray tube, adaptive exposure techniques, beam and rotation geometry, detector technology and reconstruction algorithms. Furthermore, the combination of CBCT with optical imaging is discussed, the possibility of using these devices for nondental applications is evaluated, and the potential use of phase-contrast tomography is discussed.