Repair of periodontal angular bony defects evaluated by one- and two-dimensional radiographic analysis

The healing of eighteen angular periodontal bony defects was evaluated radiographically 1 year after treatment. The pretreatment and posttreatment radiographs were exposed and processed in such a way that identical images were obtained. There was no correlation between one- and two-dimensional expressions of healing in such defects, and relative area changes were consistently larger than relative linear changes of the same defects. The area gain of bone was strongly correlated to the following morphologic variables: length of bone surface, original defect area, and height of the defect.