Dental glossary — terms beginning with C

CMD, craniomandibular dysfunction. The term comes from "cranium" (skull), "mandible" (lower jaw) and "dysfunction". CMD describes a malfunction in the interplay of upper and lower jaw caused by functional disorders of the teeth, the jaw joints and the jaw muscles.

Compliance, the patient's agreement to follow dental advice and their readiness to support the therapy.

Computed tomography, the X-ray technique that allows cross-sectional images to be produced by computing the radiation measured from an X-ray tube. Newer machines also produce three-dimensional images. The examination is very accurate and requires only a little time and patience. The head is scanned lying down: the body is moved slowly forward on a table until the head lies inside the ring-shaped tube. During the examination the table advances very slowly, step by step, and at each stop a cross-section a few millimetres thick is recorded. The images are then analysed. Multiple images show slice-by-slice pictures of the head accurate to the millimetre.