Looking for your next intraoral imaging solution? We’re taking a quick deep dive into Acteon, whose innovative and efficient products are designed to help you make quicker, more informed decisions for your patients’ treatment.
Intraoral imaging and x-ray are two core components of any modern dental practice. allowing you to make informed, effective decisions on oral health care pathways, and share important aspects of upcoming procedures with patients. Now that Acteon has rebranded into ‘New Acteon’, the company has doubled down in creating effective equipment with razor-sharp efficient workflows. This has been reflected in their more recent equipment ranges, with ease-of-use, speed, efficiency and effectiveness being key focus points for each and every one of their products. This leads us to ask; how does this newfound company direction impact the design and function of their intraoral imaging equipment? We’re investigating 3 of the newest Acteon products and evaluating what they might add to your practice.
C50 Full HD Intraoral Camera 
Pitched as a 4-in-1 camera, offering a suite of features, as well as providing high image quality and good ergonomics, for comfortable long-term use. On top of having five settings for the photograph being taken (macro, tooth, smile, intra-oral and portrait) The C50 Full HD Intraoral camera offers the four viewing options – which you cycle through with the click of a button, no changing of the head required. The viewing options are as follows: Daylight vision mode, Daylight+, Perio vision, and Cario vision mode. Daylight vision mode helps to illuminate the mouth, as though it were lit by the sun, maintaining brightness and colour balance. This provides excellent visibility of shade and pathology, as well as providing generally powerful lighting. The Daylight+ setting has a higher emphasis on creating powerful contrast. Rather than simply being brighter, this setting provides high-contrast imagery so as to emphasise anatomic fissures, as well as details of the dentin structure/depth. Perio mode follows a similar principle, however its light balance uses chromatic amplification to make things like plaque and dental gingivitis much more visible. Finally, Cario Mode helps you to better see caries by using a fluorescence technique by LEDs.
These features are a great addition to this intra-oral camera and can particularly help with patient relations. Showing a patient a picture of their mouth in Perio Mode can help to elucidate them on the nature of plaque and perhaps encourage them to follow a stricter regimen. Acteon cite a study from Dr William W. Oakes1, which indicates a 25% increase in procedure acceptance after patients trust their dentist more, and Acteon state that intraoral cameras can help to build that trust.
Finally, the C50 works very well with the Acteon Imaging Suite. The Acteon Imaging Suite, or AIS, is a proprietary imaging software, designed to be intuitive while delivering advanced 2d and 3d imaging. One underrated aspect of the AIS is that it is very easy to integrate into your practice and can be scaled depending on your needs.
The Features:
- Full HD photographs (1,920 x 1,080 pixels.)
- Five different photo types: Macro, tooth, smile, intra-oral and portrait.
- Four modes for taking pictures, Daylight vision mode, Daylight+, Perio vision, and Cario vision mode.
- A premium camera, features image magnification up to 115 times, autofocus, allowing you to visualise details beyond the naked eye for greater clinical precision.
- Lightweight ergonomic design
- Interfaces using AIS, which is available on Windows and Mac. Uses embedded drivers and can be integrated easily into any practice.
The newest of Acteon’s intra-oral cameras, the C20 has been designed to be lightweight, with plug-and-play features, as well as a full HD camera resolution.
As we said earlier, Acteon has become New Acteon, and its strengths and design principles can be seen clearly in the C20. The C20 requires minimal setup, is easy to install and intuitive to use. Everything operates off of a one-click system. You click a button to take your photo, you click that same button to save, upload, and share that photo. This is a no-frills HD intra-oral camera. While it may be lighter on the features which the C50 is known for, the C20 really can’t be beaten for its ease-of-use. Once mastered, the C20 can be an excellent tool in your arsenal for diagnosis and sharing important information with patients.
We’ve written about a lot of incredible dental equipment at DD, from super-fast autoclaves to endo motors to handpieces. But sometimes a manufacturer can go too far with their ambition to make an excellent product and accidentally make something that may be difficult or slow to use. While you might be able to make the best intra-oral camera in the world, if it’s not quick and easy to use, people won’t use it. People don’t study dentistry just for the dental equipment, but rather the dental equipment facilitates treatment and study. The C20 encapsulates that, this is a piece of equipment that has been stripped back so as to better empower fast, effective treatments.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the C20 is fully compatible with AIS. With AIS being such an easy-to-install and effective 3d imaging software, this should be considered a benefit and will help you get the most out of your HD images.
Features:
- HD – 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution.
- One-button navigation system makes the C20 very easy to use.
- Plug-and-play design means minimal installation time and minimal time working with software. Letting you focus on patient care.
PSPIX® 2 Phosphor plate scanner 
Another piece of equipment which has been simplified so as to encourage simpler, quicker, and effective workflows, this phosphor plate scanner follows an easy work process when used alongside your desktop and x-ray unit of choice.
The process for using the PSPIX® 2 Phosphor plate scanner is as follows - Drop your plate into the slit, the PSPIX® 2 will automatically detect the size, scan the plate, optimise the image, and send it instantly to your imaging software. That’s it. The PSPIX® 2 can be used with a broad range of Acteon imaging plates, and it demonstrates a practical, small footprint, measuring only at 193mm-154mm. With a resolution of Resolution of 20 lp/mm, this scanner can also scan in two modes. Quick mode has a lower resolution, but a scan time of :1.6 seconds - 2.7 seconds, whereas HD mode takes 2.1 seconds - 3.6 seconds.
Features:
- The PSPIX 2 has a useful multi-user version, which connect to up to 10 computers.
- Great image quality.
- Using Acteon Imaging Suite, the images can be further edited, exported or archived.
- Acteon Imaging Suite can easily be integrated into your PMS and imaging software to make it a very easy device to add to your clinical workflow.
- Intuitive colour touch screen controls.
- After inserting plates, the operation itself is fully automatic.
- Resolution of 20 lp/mm
- Scan time of :1.6 seconds - 2.7 seconds, or 2.1 seconds - 3.6 seconds for HD.
