OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to propose a method that automatically select the trabecular bone area in digital periapical radiographic images using a sequence of morphological operations. METHODS: The study involved 50 digital periapical radiographic images of women aged from 36 to 58 years old. The proposed method consists of three stages: teeth detection, trabecular identification, and validation. A series of morphological operations-top-hat and bottom-hat filtering, automatic thresholding, closing, labeling, global thresholding, and image subtraction-are performed to automatically obtain the trabecular bone area in images. For validation, the results of the proposed method were compared with those of two dentists pixel by pixel. Three parameters were used in the validation: trabecular area, percentage of agreed area, and percentage of disagreed area. RESULTS: The proposed method obtains the trabecular bone area in a polygon. The obtained trabecular bone area is usually larger than that of previous studies, but is usually smaller than the dentists'. On average over all images, the trabecular area produced by the proposed method is 5.83% smaller than that identified by dentists. Furthermore, the average percentage of agreed area and the average percentage of disagreed area of the proposed method against the dentists' results were 75.22% and 8.75%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The shape of the trabecular bone area produced by the proposed method is similar and closer to that identified by dentists. The method, which consists of only simple morphological operations on digital periapical radiographic images, can be considered for selecting the trabecular bone area automatically.
Dentists ; Female ; Humans ; Image Enhancement ; Methods ; Radiography ; Tooth

ABSTRACT Panoramic X-ray is well known to cause DNA damage and induces cellular death. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the cytotoxicity of radiation exposure from panoramic radiography on human buccal mucosa cells by assessing the cell viability using the simple-trypan blue exclusion test. The genotoxicity effect was evaluated by assessing comet assay score. This research included a total of 20 healthy patients who had panoramic radiography for a routine dental examination. Buccal mucosa cells were collected from all participants before X-ray exposure and at 30 min or 24 h after exposure in Groups 1 and 2, respectively, and subjected to a comet assay and trypan blue exclusion test to assess cell viability and DNA damage. Cell viability was calculated as the ratio of live (translucent) to total counted cells. Comet assay output images were analysed using OpenComet software and a visual score by measuring the percentages of tail DNA and summing the visual score, respectively. A statistically significant (p < 0.05) reduce in cell viability was observed at 30 min after exposure, furthermore there is no more reduction after 24 h. Both comet assay measurements showed a significant (p < 0.05) increase in the percentage of tail DNA and visual score at 30 min after exposure, then tend to decrease after 24 h of exposure, although it was not significant (p > 0.05). The results showed that panoramic radiography interfered cell viability and induced DNA damage in buccal mucosa cells within 30 min after exposure, but these effects were ceased after 24 h.
Mouth Mucosa--cytology ; Radiography, Panoramic