cone beam CE

cone beam1_2012 Author_Robin Goodman, Group Editor ‘Perfect pairing’ I practice matters _ interview _Cone Beam magazine seeks to provide its readership with pertinent information of all things cone beam, including its historical origins by those who pioneered the development in dentistry fromanimagingstandpoint.BruceLipsig,whoisthe director of imaging for Henry Schein Dental, is one oftheinnovatorswhobrought2-Dand3-Dimaging to dentistry. To give our readers a perspective and evolution- ary look at where we’ve been and where we are in dental imaging, would you take us through your involvement and the innovations you’ve been involvedwith? For me it began in 1991. While working in the music industry I learned how sound changes were not only related to what effects were used on those sounds, but also in what order those effects were applied. For example, if distortion was added to the guitar first and then echo was added you would be echoing a bunch of distortion, whereas if you placed theechofirstinthechainthenyoucoulddistortyour echo — so these are two completely different out- comes. This started my interest in “perfect pairings” as we would combine different elements to create a superior outcome. From that point, a friend who had been watching requested that I come to his company and perform similar fine tuning of their video. They were perfect- ing one of the first intraoral cameras called the AcuCam, and from the moment I got involved, I was hooked. Building the early AcuCam for New Image Indus- tries,ImadetwolifelongfriendswithwhomIhelped designanddevelopedproducts.Togetherwecreated the first dental imaging products called AcuCam PC — running on DOS and early Windows 3.11 — as well as the cosmetic imaging application called AcuView, which provided the ability to morph patient images toshowpotentialbeforeandafterimagesofplanned procedures, such as bleaching and bonding. These products changed the profession in many ways, bringing about a period of co-diagnosis wherebythepatientwasactuallyabletoseenotonly what the clinician was viewing, but also what the clinician was planning as a final outcome. We also investigated early digital radiography through a company in Sweden called Regam, as well as many others. This technology was still in its earliest stages of testing, something called “direct detection” whereby the energy from the X-ray head wascapturedonasensor/chip.Unfortunately,atthat time,wewerejustlearningthatwithdirectdetection theenergyfromtheX-rayheadwastoopowerfuland woulddamagethechipaswellasthecomponentson the back of the chip very quickly. Thus, indirect detection, whereby a scintillator would convert the energy from the X-ray photons to visible light that the sensor/chip could then image, would be needed if digital X-ray were to succeed. It was from those early days that the groundwork was laid for the future of digital radiography. Some readers may remember those products from the early days of technology. Where did it go from there? My team and I left New Image in 1995 and foundedacompanycalledIntegraMedicalwherewe created the award-winning Vipersoft suite of imag- ing software and ViperCam intraoral camera. This suite of imaging software also included a morphing software application for cosmetic imaging. This application actually allowed the clinician to show a patient not only what they were seeing, but what they were thinking in terms of potential treat- ment options by allowing the clinician to modify/ morph the image to show the potential outcome of certain proposed treatments, such as bleaching and bonding. Henry Schein acquired Integra Medical in 2000 and paired our Vipersoft imaging software with the industry leading Dentrix practice management software,rebrandingourVipersoftimagingsoftware as Dentrix Image and creating the first digital dental office [DDO]. Finally, the dental office was compu- terized in the front office and the operatory with all 34 I An interview with Henry Schein Dental Director of Imaging Bruce Lipsig