On a panoramic radiograph, a patient with jewelry in both ears shows earrings appearing inside the maxillary sinuses. The left sinus contains one earring's image. Which earring is actually inside the left maxillary sinus image?

Panoramic radiographs produce ghost images of objects on the opposite side — because the X-ray beam passes through an object on the RIGHT side and projects its ghost onto the LEFT side of the image (and vice versa). Therefore, an earring appearing in the LEFT maxillary sinus area is actually the ghost image of the RIGHT earring. The real (direct) image of the right earring would appear on the right side, and its ghost appears on the left.