My son had a x-ray on two teeth at the dentist , he say s he can see a shadow under them so he s sending him to the hospital for another x-ray, does this mean it could be cancer or is there other things it could be. when he asked the dentist how long a wait it would be he replied five to six weeks does this sound cause for concern.
Dear fried Thanks for sharing your concern. What made you think that it is a cancer? Don't be worried at all.  For detecting cancer an type biopsy is done not an x-ray. Your dentist must be needing a bigger x-ray like OPG for that he could have asked your son to visit hospital. In x-ray you can see hard and soft tissues like teeth, bone, cyst, periodontal abscess, periapical granuloma, necrotic areas, being tumors or quite rarely it may be malignancy too. Dark shadow or areas seen in the x-ray films is called radiolucent areas. Any pathology associated with the tooth can appear radiolucent.  You have not mentioned the other symptoms, like pain and mobility in the tooth. Any associated bleeding? Exact diagnosis can be made by clinical examination and related x-rays. I suggest you to get an OPG radiograph done that shows the exact relation of the pathology with adjacent teeth, jaws and other vital structures. Thanks