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Accuracy in Dental Medicine, A New Way to Measure Trueness and Precision
Published on: April 29, 2014
[Reliability and accuracy of digital three-dimensional reconstruction techniques in the measurement in intrabony
1Department of Periodontology, 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 Devices & Beijing Key Laboratory of Digital Stomatology & NHC Key Laboratory of Digital Stomatology & NMPA Key Laboratory for Dental Materials, Beijing 100081, China.
Objective:
To evaluate the reliability and precision of digital three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction technology in quantifying periodontal intrabony defects, utilizing preoperative cone beam CT (CBCT) data to assess the validity of 3D reconstruction methods in digital intrabony defect measurement.
Methods:
A retrospective analysis was performed on clinical and radiographic data from 32 patients with 38 teeth who underwent periodontal surgery, including flap surgery, bone grafting, and guided tissue regeneration (GTR) at the Second Clinical Division, Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology from September 2021 to June 2024. Preoperative CBCT scans were used to reconstruct digital models of intrabony defects with 3D Slicer software. Two resident doctors performed digital measurements of the height and width of the intrabony defects, which were taken one week apart and recorded as the digital measurement group. The measurements obtained during the surgical procedure using probing were considered the actual measurement group. SPSS 26.0 software was utilized to calculate the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for the consistency of repeated measurements by the same examiner and the consistency between different examiners, as well as paired t tests to detect differences in measurement results between the two methods.
Results:
The study demonstrated good consistency for both intra-examiner (ICC=0.994) and inter-examiner (ICC=0.997) reliability. There was no statistically significant difference between the digital measurement values and the clinical measurement values in the depth (t=-0.563, P=0.576) and width (t=-0.816, P=0.425) of the intrabony defects. The digital measurement values showed the highest consistency with clinical measurement values for simple intrabony defects (ICC: 0.905-0.991), followed by compound intrabony defects (ICC: 0.785-0.788). For complex intrabony defects, the consistency in depth measurements was high (ICC=0.880), while the consistency in width measurements was moderate (ICC=0.505).
Conclusion:
Digital 3D reconstruction technology has good repeatability and accuracy in measuring periodontal intrabony defects and holds certain clinical reference value.

