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Updated: Jul 12, 2025
Author Spotlight: Advancing CBCT and Digital Dental Image Integration with AI-Assisted Digitization
Published on: February 23, 2024
Quantitative assessment of condylar bone resorption using fused CBCT images: differentiating and diagnosing three
Ji-Ling Feng1, Ruo-Han Ma1, Li-Li Sun1
1Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology & National Center for Stomatology & National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases & National Engineering Research Center of Oral Biomaterials and Digital Medical Device & Beijing Key Laboratory of Digital Stomatology & Research Center of Engineering and Technology for Computerized Dentistry Ministry of Health & NMPA Key Laboratory for Dental Materials, Beijing, China.
Objectives:
To investigate the accuracy of fused CBCT images in diagnosing three distinct groups of bone changes characterized by volume and thickness decrease in patients with temporomandibular joint osteoarthrosis (TMJ OA) during follow-up.
Methods:
In this retrospective study, 109 patients (176 TMJs) with TMJ OA were included. Two consecutive CBCT images for the same patient were registered and fused. Then, three image sets were established: without fusion, fused 2D image, and fused 3D image. Three residents randomly and independently evaluated whether there was condylar resorption with the three image sets respectively. The samples diagnosed as condylar resorption by the expert panel were divided into three subgroups according to the volume and thickness decrease calculated after segmentation. The inter- and intraobserver agreement, receiver operating characteristic (ROC), and area under the curve (AUC) evaluated the diagnostic capability for different subgroups.
Results:
For the volume decrease more than 50 mm3 and thickness decrease more than 1 mm groups, the AUC values for fused image sets were higher than those without fusion (p < 0.01). For the volume decrease within 50 mm3 and thickness decrease within 1 mm groups, the AUC values for fused 2D image sets were higher than the image sets without fusion (p < 0.05), but there was no significant difference between the fused 3D image sets and the image sets without fusion (p = 0.48 for volume decrease, p = 0.37 for thickness decrease).
Conclusions:
The fused images can improve the diagnostic accuracy and repeatability for the samples with at least 50 mm3 volume decrease or 1 mm thickness decrease compared with the image groups without fusion.
