No abstract

This study aimed at performing and comparing third molar development staging in extracted teeth (EX), in panoramic radiographs (PAN) and in cone beam computed tomography (CBCT). Extracted third molars (n=158, 95 maxillary, 63 mandibular) from 102 patients (36 males, 66 females) having at least one preoperative PAN and one CBCT volume were studied. Third molar development staging was performed in PAN, EX and in CBCT using Gleiser et al. (1955) technique modified by Köhler et al (1994). A polytomous logistic regression model was used to compare the staging performed EX and in CBCT with the gold standard staging in PAN. In all the pair-wise comparisons between staging modalities 100 third molars (63.3%) were equally staged. The other 58 third molars (36.7%) were staged with a maximum difference of one stage. No statistically significant differences between the three staging modalities were detected (p=0.26). The comparison between EX and PAN staging revealed higher similarity (p=0.98 in stages 5-10) than the comparison between CBCT and PAN staging (p=0.81 in stages 5, 7 and 9, and 0.80 in stages 6, 8 and 10). The studied third molar staging technique originally designed in PAN can be applied for third molar staging EX and in CBCT.

According to INTERPOL, the comparison of antemortem and postmortem dental identifiers is a scientifically reliable approach for human identification. This study aimed to quantify the prevalence of corresponding INTERPOL coded dental identifiers in cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans and panoramic radiographs (PR).The sample consisted of 100 CBCT scans and 100 PR taken the same day from the same patients (35 males and 65 females). Randomly and independently, forty-one INTERPOL coded dental identifiers were searched in each image. Wilcoxon test compared the prevalence of codes in CBCT scans and PR, Chi-square tested the dependence between codes and teeth; and multiple correspondence analyses (MCA) explored the association between codes and teeth in color maps for CBCT scans and PR. No statistically significant differences between the prevalence of identifiers in CBCT scans and PR were detected (p=0.693). In CBCT scans and PR, dependence between teeth and codes was detected (p<0.05). In the study sample, the strongest associations were found between the codes unerupted (UNE), partially erupted (ERU) and impacted (IMV) and third molars, both in CBCT scans and PR. INTERPOL coded dental identifiers registered on CBCT scans and PR can be exchanged during human identification.