Qualidade de imagens radiográficas processadas em consultórios odontológicos e em laboratório

Abstract

This work aims evaluate subjectively the quality of radio- graphic images exposed in dental offices and processed in proper dental offices by surgeon-dentists and/or assistants or in laboratory, by researchers. Methods: Eighteen dental offic- es integrated the research. Each one received a pair of Kodak Ektaspeed periapical films which was exposed together with an extracted inferior molar. The exposition time varied in function of each dental office. The assistant and/or surgeon dentist car- ried through the processing of one of the films, with the same technique and resources used habitually (Group 1). The other film was processed by researchers in the Laboratory of Metrol- ogy of Federal University of Pernambuco (Group 2). Through a questionnaire, two radiologists evaluated the sharpness, den- sity, contrast, definition of enamel, dentine and amelodentinary junction, errors present in the images and if each image would be enough for a good diagnosis. Results: Through Chi-Square or Fisher ́s Exact test, it was observed that Group 2 got a big- ger number of radiographs with low density and dark radio- graphs (p-value<0,05). Group 1 presented a bigger number of clear radiographs, with dark spots, brown spots and scratch ra- diographs (p-value<0,05). There wasn’t statistical significant dif- ference in relation to sharpness, contrast, definition of enamel, dentine, and amelodentinary junction, presence of clear spots and the capacity of carrying through a good diagnosis (p-val- ue>0.05). Conclusions: This study suggested that radiographic images produced in dental office present imperfections in tech- nique execution and in the processing. However, despite the im- portance of a correct radiographic processing, the overexposure of the films was the major cause of flaws in image quality.