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| EDITORIAL |
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| Year : 2013 | Volume
: 1
| Issue : 1 | Page : 1 |
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Editorial
Stuart C White
Professor Emeritus, Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, UCLA School of Dentistry, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| Date of Web Publication | 3-May-2013 |
Correspondence Address:
Stuart C White
Professor Emeritus, Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, UCLA School of Dentistry, Los Angeles, CA
USA
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
How to cite this article:
White SC. Editorial. J Oral Maxillofac Radiol 2013;1:1 |
I would like to extend my congratulations to Dr. H. Huseyin Yilmaz and his colleagues for founding the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology. These are exciting times in oral radiology and the journal has the potential to play an integral role in furthering the advancement of our field. Intraoral and panoramic imaging has made, and continues to make, critical contributions to patient care. The development of digital imaging in recent decades offers dentists the ease of rapid imaging and improved patient education. The advent of cone-beam imaging has brought a new dimension to the practice of oral and maxillofacial radiologists. This tool, along with increased use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound (US) and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging for orofacial disease, significantly extends diagnostic opportunities in comparison with conventional imaging. With these remarkable imaging capabilities; however, come new responsibilities. We need to educate ourselves about the best ways to use these diagnostic tools for optimizing diagnosis while minimizing both unnecessary exposure and expenditure of limited health care funds. We need to learn more about the imaging manifestations of disease in order to better detect disease early, appreciate its extent in a patient, and to make relevant differential diagnoses. We need to develop new imaging technologies and to find novel applications for exiting techniques. We need to better understand the pathophysiology of disease, its patterns of spread, both in individuals and populations. We need to better understand the risks and benefits of diagnostic imaging. We need to find ways to improve access to health care for those less fortunate. Such achievements will require personal efforts as well as collaborations with colleagues in schools of dentistry, medicine, and engineering as well as industry. Improvement of our personal and collective abilities must be an active, continuous, and integral part of our lives. It does not happen by accident but rather through intentional effort. Professional journals such as the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology offer an excellent means to achieve both goals; to improve ourselves by learning from the work of others as well as to improve our profession by sharing the findings of our own research.
I wish to thank the Editor and his Board for their imagination to envision the need for this journal and for their willingness to make the required sacrifices to ensure its success. While it is a major responsibility to take on this task, one that requires considerable time and thoughtfulness, there is also the prospect of sizeable reward: of creating a journal that has the potential to make substantial contributions to both our personal growth as well as to the development of our rapidly maturing field of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology. I wish all concerned good fortune and great success.
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