Establishment of narrow root fracture models using modified temperature cycling method and diagnosis using different cone-beam CT units
Abstract Background The aim of this study was to Use modified thermal cycling method to establish narrow root fracture models and evaluate the diagnosis efficiency of them using four different cone-beam CT (CBCT) units.Methods Fifty-six intact teeth were selected and the crowns of the teeth were embedded using general purpose acrylic resin. 50 VRF models were established by soaking these teeth in liquid nitrogen and hot water cyclically; 6 teeth were used as negative control. All the 56 teeth were scanned with the smallest voxel size of four different CBCT units (NewTom VGi, Planmeca Promax 3D Max, Kavo 3D eXam and Soredex Scanora3D). 10 teeth were randomly selected and the roots were sliced using slow-speed saw to obtain horizontal root sections. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to measure the width of the fracture lines (FLs). The CBCT images were evaluated for the presence or absence of fracture lines. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) were calculated for the diagnosis of FLs using the four CBCT units.Results Fifty narrow root fracture models were successfully established, and 25 root sections with 45 FLs were acquired. The width of FLs was from 3.43 µm to 143 µm; 32.06% were less than 25 µm, only 9.6% were from 75 to 150 µm. The AUC was 0.59, 0.520, 0.61 and 0.58 for NewTom VGi, Planmeca Promax 3D Max, Kavo 3D eXam and Soredex Scanora3D, respectively.Conclusions The modified temperature cycling method is a simple and effective method to establish narrow root fracture models, the diagnosis efficiently for these narrow fracture lines were quite poor using all the four different CBCT units.