Autor(es): Thiago Oliveira Sousa, Bassam Hassan, Hesam Mirmohammadi, Hagay Shemesh, Francisco Haiter-Neto
Introduction: The study objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) for detection of lateral canals (LC) in endodontically treated premolars.
Methods: Two evaluators classified eighty extracted premolars into two groups based on the absence (n=40) or presence (n=40) of LC according to micro computed tomography (µCT) analysis. The extracted teeth were fixated in a human mandible and scanned with CBCT. Subsequently, each tooth was endodontically treated and CBCT scans were repeated. Three experienced examiners evaluated all images randomly. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were compared using McNemar test and sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were obtained.
Results: The area under the ROC curves values were 0.58 and 0.49 prior to and following RCT, respectively. These values were statistically significantly different (p<0.001). Prior to RCT sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV were 55%, 52%, 55% and 56% while following RCT the values were 33%, 61%, 46% and 48%, respectively.
Conclusions: LC detection in non-treated teeth presented low accuracy, while among treated teeth CBCT showed no efficacy. The results suggest that CBCT is not an effective diagnostic tool for LC detection.
Keywords: lateral canal, cone beam computed tomography, root canal obturation, diagnosis.
Texto completo disponível em: Journal of Endodontics