Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Mar;48(3):20180138.
doi: 10.1259/dmfr.20180138. Epub 2019 Jan 11.

A reject analysis of cone-beam CTs in under-aged patients

Jakob W G Van Acker  1 , Wolfgang Jacquet  2   3 , Melissa Dierens  4 , Luc C Martens  1
Affiliations

A reject analysis of cone-beam CTs in under-aged patients

Jakob W G Van Acker et al. Dentomaxillofac Radiol. 2019 Mar.

Abstract

Objectives:: The main objective of this study was to perform a retrospective reject analysis (or audit) of 79 cone-beam CTs (CBCTs) taken in under-aged patients at the Ghent University hospital over a 2-year timespan.

Methods:: Observer agreement between two oral radiologists and two senior year Master students in Paediatric Dentistry was performed for quality, diagnostic and therapeutic value. The senior year Master Students followed appropriate modules of an online course. Descriptive and comparative statistics were performed.

Results:: For the oral radiologists, all intra rater reliabilities were moderate to good (Gwet's AC1 = 0.41-0.75). For the senior students in Paediatric dentistry, these varied highly from fair to very good (Gwet's AC1 = 0.28-0.95). There was a high level of disagreement between oral radiologists and students (Gwet's AC1 = 0.16-0.45) and in-between students concerning observed quality (Gwet's AC1 = 0.29). A total of 16 CBCTs (20%) was rejected, 24 images (30%) were acceptable and 39 images (50%) had an excellent quality. 50 CBCTs were perceived to have a diagnostic advantage. 13 of the images would have no influence on the therapy, according to the oral radiologists. A significant correlation was found between unacceptable quality, absence of perceived diagnostic advantage (p = 0.004, RR = 2.4) and influence on therapy (p < 0.0005, RR = 1.8). A small field of view (FOV) was positively correlated to an excellent quality of the image (p = 0.011, RR = 2.8).

Conclusions:: Image quality did not reach the proposed boundary of 10% according to the European Guidelines on Radiation Protection in Dental Radiology. This is the first published audit on an overall database of under-age children for CBCT.

Keywords: Dental imaging, Radiology, Pediatric dentistry, Cone-Beam Computed Tomography, Medical Audit.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Distribution of main reasons for referral taken from Van Acker et al
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Absolute counts of accepted versus rejected images and the percentage of rejected images for age group, gender, main reason for referral, field of view (FOV) and resolution.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Mozzo P , Procacci C , Tacconi A , Martini PT , Andreis IA . A new volumetric CT machine for dental imaging based on the cone-beam technique: preliminary results . Eur Radiol 1998. ; 8 : 1558 – 64 . doi: 10.1007/s003300050586 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Arai Y , Tammisalo E , Iwai K , Hashimoto K , Shinoda K . Development of a compact computed tomographic apparatus for dental use . Dentomaxillofac Radiol 1999. ; 28 : 245 – 8 . doi: 10.1038/sj.dmfr.4600448 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Pauwels R , Araki K , Siewerdsen JH , Thongvigitmanee SS . Technical aspects of dental CBCT: state of the art . Dentomaxillofac Radiol 2015. ; 44 : 20140224 . doi: 10.1259/dmfr.20140224 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nemtoi A , Czink C , Haba D , Gahleitner A . Cone beam CT: a current overview of devices . Dentomaxillofac Radiol 2013. ; 42 : 20120443 . doi: 10.1259/dmfr.20120443 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Guerrero ME , Noriega J , Castro C , Jacobs R . Does cone-beam CT alter treatment plans? Comparison of preoperative implant planning using panoramic versus cone-beam CT images . Imaging Sci Dent 2014. ; 44 : 121 – 8 . doi: 10.5624/isd.2014.44.2.121 - DOI - PMC - PubMed