The mouth is grossly contaminated, and dental procedures are one of the most common indications for invasive procedures (dental scaling or oral surgery such as extraction of teeth). Just on this basis, it would seem appropriate to treat dental procedure patient with an antibiotic. In fact, an antibiotic is not indicated in most dental patients, because the procedure removes the area of infection, and oral tissues heal very rapidly. There are indications for use of an antibiotic, based on the severity of the oral disease undergoing treatment, the type of procedure, and presence of coexisting systemic abnormalities such as cardiac or renal disease. This webinar will describe how to decide which patients need or do not need an antibiotic at the time of the dental procedure. For patients in which administration of an antibiotic is indicated, other decisions needing to be made include which antibiotic to use, timing of the start of the antibiotic treatment and duration of the antibiotic treatment.

This webinar will introduce the basics of positioning and obtaining dental radiographs and give examples of typical findings – normal anatomical and abnormal pathological.

Do you have trouble taking good diagnostic dental X-ray images? A good understanding of dental radiology is an essential skill for veterinary nurses and technicians today.