Suk Y. Ng; 2023; Springer Cham; £103.50; pp. 414; ISBN: 978-3-031-25480-2

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Written for the clinician, this book is an easy-to-use guide suitable for dental practitioners, postgraduate students and medical radiologists. It might also be of value to dental and maxillofacial radiologists as a refresher reference as well. The 414-page book is divided into eight chapters covering most applications of CBCT in daily use. The chapters are carefully and clearly written, straightforward and well referenced. Illustrations are mainly of excellent quality.

The first chapter deals with basic information about CBCT, guiding the reader to understand the 3D nature of dental CBCT imaging in a simple way. A good understanding of normal anatomy is essential to interpretation of radiological images, so chapters two and three, which describe the normal anatomy of teeth and surrounding structures in the maxillofacial area and base of the skull, are welcome. These prepare the reader for the next chapter, showing the alveolar bone changes due to age and tooth loss. The author then describes dental periapical changes in chapter five, which is followed with the CBCT appearances of benign and malignant diseases in chapter six. The next chapter compares and contrasts conventional dental radiography and CBCT. In the opinion of this reviewer, this might have been better placed earlier in the book, directly after chapter one, as it guides the beginner in this field to understand the differences between the 3D nature of CBCT and conventional 2D radiography, information which would help before embarking on the anatomical and pathological sections of the book. Finally, in chapter eight, the ‘big four' clinical applications of CBCT in dentistry are considered: the assessment of maxillary ectopic canines and of mandibular third molars, uses in implant dentistry, and for endodontics. It would have been good to explore other uses in more detail, but all books have size limitations and a focus on the main clinical uses is reasonable.

Unlike radiography, CBCT imaging is viewed dynamically by scrolling through the volume, so there are limitations in what can be presented in a book. Nonetheless, the image quality seen in the book, from a high-quality hospital scanner, might exceed those available to dentists using cheaper equipment, but shows what is achievable. With most of the population now able to read books on their smart devices, there has been a tendency towards dental textbooks being available in electronic form. Although this book is available in book format, the incorporation of the technology to show videos on demand is a good strategy from the publisher to help the reader reach custom-made videos prepared by an author who is highly experienced in this field.Finally, the author is to be congratulated for this work and I strongly recommend this book for the new users of dental CBCT as a convenient reference guide.