Reproducibility of lateral cephalometric landmarks on conventional radiographs and spatial frequency-processed digital images

Abstract

Purpose : Computed radiography (CR) has been used in cephalometric radiography and many studies have been carried out to improve image quality using various digital enhancement and filtering techniques, During CR image acquisition, the frequency rank and type affect to the image quality. The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic quality of conventional cephalometric radiographs to those of computed radiography. Materials and Methods : The diagnostic quality of conventional cephalometric radiographs (MO) and their digital image counterparts were compared, and at the same time, six modalities (M1-M6) of spatial frequency-processed digital images were compared by evaluating the reproducibility of 23 cephalometric landmark locations. Reproducibility was defined as an observer's deviation (in mm) from the mean between all observers. Results and Conclusion: In comparison with the conventional cephalometric radiograph (MO), Ml showed statistically significant differences in 8 locations, M2 in 9, M3 12, M4 in 7, M5 in 12, and M6 showed significant differences in 14 of 23 landmark locations (p < 0.05). The number of reproducible landmarks that each modality possesses were 7 in M6, 6 in M5, 5 in M3, 4 in M4, 3 in M2, 2 in Ml, and 1 location in MO. The image modality that observers selected as having the best image quality was M5.