ACCURACY OF ORAL MUCOSAL MEASUREMENTS USING CBCT AND BARIUM EMBEDDED DENTURE BASE

Objective The dimensions and relationships of the periodontal structures are vital in various dental specialties. Paper describes a simple, novel, noninvasive and a promising technique which illustrates and validates the possibility of radiographically visualizing and metrically assessing oral hard and soft tissues of the periodontium.

Materials and Methods A total of 14 periodontally healthy, dentate subjects with no severe crowding, rotation, or spacing in the maxilla, and no history of palatal disease or surgery participated in this study. Maxillary impression of the patient made using additional polyvinyl impression material. Maxillary CBCT images of the patients with the barium incorporated denture base in place  were obtained using Carestream CS 3D 9300 C machine with the FOV of 5X10 cm at 90 Kvp, 6.3 mA, scanning time 8 secs and angle of rotation 270 degrees. Analysis was done using CS 3D Dental Imaging Software.

Results A strong correlation in the measurements of thickness of the palatal masticatory mucosa by both methods (r=0.90; p<0.01). Mean palatal masticatory mucosa thickness was 2.74 mm (range: 2.0 to 6.03 mm) on CBCT and on physical measurements it was found to be 2.6 mm (range: 2.0 to 5.03 mm).

Conclusion Barium sulphate dry, white, chalky powder, appears white (radio-opaque) on the X-ray film. Its applications in medicine include barium meal a diagnostic test used to detect abnormalities of the esophagus, stomach and small bowel using X-ray imaging. This coherent property of radio opacity of barium helped us visualize and analyse the oral hard and soft tissues on maxillary CBCT images as well.