Enhanced speed and precision of measurement in a computer-assisted digital cephalometric analysis system.

Abstract

The computer-assisted digital cephalometric analysis system (CADCAS) may reduce the time required for cephalometric analysis, especially for taking measurements. Aimed at estimating the time saved by using CADCAS, we measured the time needed by a clinician to perform the analysis in a traditional manner. We also sought to verify the accuracy achieved by traditional cephalometric analysis by exploring the disagreement between manual measurements and those generated by CADCAS. Our results revealed that, on average, even an experienced clinician needed more than 25 minutes to perform an entire cephalometric analysis using a traditional method, with more than 15 minutes of this needed just for taking measurements. Disagreements between measurements by traditional method and those by CADCAS were most frequently noted in the measurement value of cephalometric items reflecting the severity of a jaw discrepancy by the "sign" reflecting the anteroposterior relationship. After excluding the measurements with obvious error, the measurement differences between traditional method and CADCAS were not statistically significant in 23 of a total of 26 cephalometric items. In conclusion, the CADCAS can reduce the time needed for cephalometric analysis and can help reduce the human errors introduced during the manual-measuring procedure in the traditional cephalometric analysis.