Comparative evaluation of peri-implant bone height in digital conventional radiographs and digital subtraction images

Abstract

Introduction: Long-term clinical evaluation of dental implants and their surrounding structures is necessary to acquire more knowledge about the reasons for success and failure of implants. However, accurate and reproducible results are difficult to obtain. The aim of this study was to evaluate bone height around endosseous implants using digital conventional radiographs (DCR) and direct digital subtraction images (DSI) prior to loading. Materials and Methods: In this study, 10 dental implants from 6 patients were studied. Standardized digital radiographs were obtained one week and 3 months postoperatively and subtracted by means of EMAGO software. Then two radiologists evaluated bone height on digital conventional radiographs and digital subtraction images . Data was analyzed with paired t-test using the MINITAB 1.4 software program. Results: Comparative evaluation of bone height indicated significantly higher values on DCR than on DSI (p value = 0.002). The observers also had statistically significant variability in this assessment (p value = 0.00003). Conclusion: The problem in evaluating bone height was the inevitable effect of the operator which should be taken into consideration in follow ups. Additionally, DSI technique can be effective in predicting the dental implant success because it can show lower amounts and less differences in evaluation of bone height reported by different operators.