Evaluation of the effect of post-processing filters on the quantification of artifacts of dental implants in cone beam computed tomography

Abstract

Dental implants, when present in the region of acquisition of cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) exams, lead to the formation of artifacts, which may interfere with the visualization and evaluation of the bone adjacent to these implants, making postoperative follow-up difficult. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the ability of post-processing filters to reduce dental implant artifacts in CBCT images by quantifying them. Will be tested filters made available by 02 software, one national (e-Vol DX, CDT, Brazil) and a South Korean (Ondemand3D, CyberMed, Seoul, Republic of Korea). For this purpose, CBCT images will be acquired from an I-Cat Next Generation CT scanner with the same protocol (16.0 X 6.00cm FOV and 0.2mm voxel) of phantons of artificial polyurethane and barium jaws (Nacional Ossos , Jaú, SP, Brazil). In these phantons, titanium and zirconium dioxide implants will be installed individually, varying the region of their positions (incisors, canine, premolars and molars). Each implant, in its position will be acquired 03 times (acquisition in triplicate). The intensity 1x and 2x filters of the Ondemand3D software and the Multi CDT NR (Noise Reduction) and BAR (Bloming Artifact Reduction) filters of the e-Vol DX software will be applied to the images. The quantification of the artifacts will then be performed, based on the methodology of Pauwels et al. (2013), developed on ImageJ software (U.S. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA). The analyzes will be performed by 01 radiologist previously calibrated by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). From the acquisitions in triplicates (of each implant and in each position) an average will be made, which will serve as an experimental unit regarding the quantification of artifact, corresponding to the filter used. The comparison of the values of artifacts of each implant in the different positions will be assessed by the one-way Anova test. The comparisons of the artifact values according to the filter and the type of implants will be analyzed by the 02-factor variance test. The level of significance will be 5%.