Guidelines for clinical use of CBCT: a review

To identify guidelines on the clinical use of CBCT in dental and maxillofacial radiology, in particular selection criteria, to consider how they were produced, to appraise their quality objectively and to compare their recommendations.

A literature search using MEDLINE (Ovid(®)) was undertaken prospectively from 1 January 2000 to identify published material classifiable as "guidelines" pertaining to the use of CBCT in dentistry. This was supplemented by searches on websites, an internet search engine, hand searching of theses and by information from personal contacts. Quality assessment of publications was performed using the AGREE II instrument. Publications were examined for areas of agreement and disagreement.

26 publications were identified, 11 of which were specifically written to give guidelines on the clinical use of CBCT and contained sections on selection criteria. The remainder were a heterogeneous mixture of publications that included guidelines relating to CBCT. Two had used a formal evidence-based approach for guideline development and two used consensus methods. The quality of publications was frequently low as assessed using AGREE II, with many lacking evidence of adequate methodology. There was broad agreement between publications on clinical use, apart from treatment planning, in implant dentistry.

Reporting of guideline development is often poorly presented. Guideline development panels should aim to perform and report their work using the AGREE II instrument as a template to raise standards and avoid the risk of suspicions of bias.