Appointments
Dental radiology
How to get an appointment
Your dental team will usually let you know if you need imaging examinations.
For patients from other hospitals who need cone beam CT scans your dental team will arrange an appointment.
For patients with salivary gland conditions, please contact the salivary gland clinic.
Changing your appointment
You can change or cancel your appointment up to 24 hours before your appointment. Please give us as much notice as possible so that we can offer cancelled appointments to other patients.
If you cancel your appointment with less than 24 hours' notice, we'll let your referring clinician know and you'll need to be referred again.
If you're more than 20 minutes late for an appointment, we may not be able to see you and will not automatically give you a new appointment.
Before your appointment
Please arrive no more than 15 minutes before your appointment time.
For most of our examinations, you don't need to do anything before your appointment. You may be asked to remove:
- jewellery
- hearing aids
- glasses
- dentures
This is because they may interfere with image quality.
For ultrasound scans, facial hair can partially obstruct the ultrasound beam. We may ask if you would be happy to shave your beard. This allows us to get better, more accurate images of the area we're scanning.
For a cone beam CT scan where your referring clinician has given you a radiographic stent, please bring this to your appointment.
For salivary gland service patients, please bring details of your medical history and a list of medicines you take.
You should eat and drink as normal before your appointment. This is important if you're having an intervention procedure such as:
- sialogram
- stone removal
- balloon ductoplasty
- lithotripsy
- fine needle aspiration (FNA)
- core needle biopsy
If you're having sialogram, we recommend that you drink 2 glasses of water when you arrive in our waiting room.
During your appointment
You'll see a member of our radiology team. This might be a student or trainee, under the supervision of a qualified professional.
After your appointment
The clinician who sent you for radiology examinations will let you know if you should return to the clinic or if you can go home.
