The Department of Oral Diagnostics is one of the youngest within the Faculty of Dentistry. It founded by the resolution of the University Senate in 2011, through the merger of the former Independent Section of Radiology, the Section of Oral Diagnostics and Section of Dentoalveolar Surgery.
The Independent Section of Radiology was founded in 2003 in the old clinical building located at Mikszáth Kálmán square. The Section of Oral Diagnostics was founded in 2007 by the resolution of the Faculty Council at the time of moving into the new Dental Training Centre. The Section of Dentoalveolar Surgery was founded in 2007 as an outpatient oral surgery service for the dental patients treated in different clinics of the greater Dental Training Centre.
The new integrated department, which occupies the 3rd floor of the new Dental Training Centre, is active in the entire range of dental diagnostic activities and emergency as well as primary dental care. The well-trained team has professional knowledge and expertise in all related fields of dentistry, and are proficient in managing a broad spectrum of dental diagnostic procedures. The dental diagnostic service and emergency care are located within the same department, allowing new patients and emergency cases to be effectively checked and diagnosed at once. After initial diagnoses are completed, patients are either treated in the department or referred to the specialty clinics in the Dental Training Centre for further comprehensive treatment. The oral surgeons and the oral surgery residents of the Dentoalveolar Surgery Section within the department provide emergency and surgical therapy to patients, being well-trained with state-of-the-art methods and technologies in dental implantology.
The Section of Dental Radiology has three panoramic and seven intraoral X-ray instruments each with digitalised CCD sensors, allowing the all image processing to be digitalised. All computers integrated with the X-ray instruments are networked to the dental clinics, allowing for immediate access to all image records on computer terminals within dental operatories in addition to allowing ease in filing patient’s records and in future research. A Cone Beam 3-Dimensional computer tomography instrument has also recently been installed, greatly improving radiological diagnoses in several fields of dentistry. The 3-D imaging is particularly effective in planning treatments in dental implantology.
The department works in close collaborative relation with all partner clinics, building-on and maintaining constant communication. The department has engineered a training network that meets the requirements of dental students in the 21st century. These novel 3-D diagnostic imaging procedures in combination with the latest chairside diagnostic tools (e.g. lab on a chip), add an extra dimension to the training experience. On the research aspect, the department hosts the Materials Science Research Institute (MSRI) which is actively engaged in international collaborative projects involving the rational design of biocompatible dental materials, with partners in the University of London and University of Cambridge in the UK, the University of Toronto in Canada, the University of Hong Kong and Beijing Normal University in China.
The faculty members cover the following aspects of dentistry: 1) Oral Diagnostics, an important integrated dental subject in which 3rd and 5th year students acquire the proficiency to utilize comprehensive medical and dental history to diagnose dental diseases and make legal dental records. 2) Radiation protection and 3) General and Dental Radiology, are both one semester courses consisting of two theoretical lectures and two practical sessions each week. Freely chosen subjects include special courses on etiology and diagnostic tests of Oral cancers. In a collaboration with staff members of Medical School as well as School of Pharmacy our faculty members organize two credit course on Introduction to nanotechnology. The department participates in three accredited Ph.D. programs. The faculty members have recently published several articles in international peer reviewed scientific journals as well as Hungarian dental journals.