Sulcus measurement by high frequency ultrasound imaging ex-vivo: an exploratory study

The aim of this study was to compare the measurement of periodontal pocket by ultrasound in comparison with gold standard measurements ex-vivo.

A total of 12 hemi-jaws were included in the study. Ultrasound measurements of the sulcus were performed and then, sulcus depth was measured by manual probing. The reading of the ultrasound images was carried using ImageJ software. Reference points are made allowing the measurement of this sulcular space. To assess the hypothesis of normality of the data, a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was performed for each of the samples due to the size of their population (>50). To complete this test, Lin's concordance test was also applied.

A total of 348 manual probing and 348 ultrasound imagines measurements were performed. The Lin concordance and correlation coefficients and their 95% confidence intervals obtained were 0.855 (95% CI [0.822; 0.855]). These data allow us to demonstrate the equivalence between the measurement of the depth of the periodontal pocket by ultrasound imaging and the measurement by manual probing.

This study shows that the use of an ultrasound probe for periodontal imaging was comparable to the current gold standard for measuring the sulcus area. These promising results must be confirmed by measurements in humans.