Background:Carotid artery calcification may be related to cerebrovascular accident, which may result in death or physical and mental disabilities in survivors.Objectives:Our purpose is to study the association of carotid artery calcification (CAC) on dental panoramic radiographs and two risk factors of cerebrovascular accident (CVA) including hypertension and myocardial infarction (MI).Patients and Methods:Panoramic images of 200 patients that were all women above 50 years of age (a population suffering from vascular diseases) were investigated. All panoramic images were provided under similar conditions in terms of the type of panoramic radiograph equipment, type of applied films and the automatic film processor. Then, the patients answered questions about MI history and taking antihypertensive drugs. We also measured the blood pressure of patients in two separate surveys. Data analysis was performed by SPSS statistical program. We used Exact Fisher test and Chi-Square test at a significant level of less than 0.05 to study the effect of these variables on the occurrence of carotid artery calcification.Results:Among 200 studied samples, 22 of the patients (11%) had carotid artery calcification on the dental panoramic radiograph. In total, 52 patients (26%) had hypertension and four people (2%) had a history of MI. Eleven individuals among patients suffering from hypertension (21.2%) and three individuals among patients with a history of MI (75%) demonstrated CAC on dental panoramic images .Conclusions:The relationship between CAC found on dental panoramic radiographs and two CVA risk factors--hypertension and MI-- was significant. Therefore, it seems that detection of CAC on panoramic images of dental patients must be considered by dentists.
Background:Evaluation of the craniofacial bones is the oldest method to measure the facial proportion ratio in orthodontics.Objectives:The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of emboss enhancement on the reliability of landmark identification in digital lateral cephalometric images.Materials and Methods:Ten digital lateral cephalograms were selected from the archive of an oral and maxillofacial radiology center. Using DIGORA software, these images were saved in two formats; common images and 3D emboss images. On these images, 32 skeletal, dental, and soft tissue landmarks were marked at least twice with a 2-week interval by four observers (two radiologists and two orthodontists). In order to determine the position of the marked landmarks (in x and y coordinates), a software was designed. The statistical analysis was performed in SPSS software and the reliability of each observer was obtained by means of intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).Results:In three skeletal landmarks [Orbit (Or), condyl top (Cond), and pogonion (Pog)], the enhancement caused significant reduction in the reliability, and in four skeletal [Anterior Nasal Spine (ANS), B, A, and Basion (Ba)], two dental (U1 root, L1 incisal), and one soft tissue landmark (Menton soft tissue), the enhancement increased the reliability of landmark detection between the two phases of the study. Totally, ICC of embossed images in both x and y coordinates were greater than the typical images, but the difference was not statistically significant. However, the effect of enhancement on the improvement of the reliability of landmark identification was higher in the x-axis than the y-axis.Conclusions:Using embossed images is only effective in increasing the reliability of detection in a few numbers of cephalometric landmarks.
BackgroundMarketing new radiography devices necessitates documenting their absorbed X-ray doses. Since the current literature lacks studies on new devices, we assessed the doses of two new devices that had not previously been assessed.ObjectivesThe new devices were compared to the Promax three dimensional (3D) scanner at two fields of view (FOV) in nine critical head and neck tissues and organs.Materials and MethodsSeventeen thermoluminescence dosimeters positioned in an average-sized male RANDO phantom were used to determine the dosimetry of the three cone beam computerized tomography devices (NewTom VGi, NewTom 5G, and Promax 3D) at two field of views (FOVs), one small and one large. The exposure by each device per FOV was performed five times (30 exposures). The absorbed and effective doses were calculated for the thyroid, parotid, submandibular gland, sublingual gland, calvarium, cervical vertebra, trunk of the mandible, and mandibular ramus. The doses pertaining to the different devices, the FOVs, and the tissues were compared using the Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U, and Wilcoxon tests.ResultsThe average absorbed doses, respectively, for the large and small FOVs were 17.19 and 28.89 mGy in the Promax 3D, 19.25 and 35.46 mGy in the NewTom VGi, and 18.85 and 30.63 mGy in the NewTom 5G. The absorbed doses related to the FOVs were not significantly different (P value = 0.1930). However, the effective doses were significantly greater at the smaller FOVs / higher resolutions (P = 0.0039). The doses of the three devices were not significantly different (P = 0.8944). The difference among the nine organs/tissues was significant (Kruskal-Wallis P=0.0000).ConclusionThe absorbed doses pertaining to the devices and the FOVs were not significantly different, although the organs/tissues absorbed considerably different doses.
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