ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a radiometric analysis of radicular cysts and periapical granulomas is useful in the differential diagnosis. In this experiment, twenty-nine periapical radiographs of the radicular cyst and those periapical granuloma were used. The periapical radiography was taken by intraoral paralleling device. The X-ray film was digitized and digitally filtered to reduce film-grain noise. We estimated density difference of the inner/outer area, roundness or circularity, bone profile or scan line of the margin and cumulative percentage frequency curve of radicular cyst & periapical granuloma. The obtained results were as follows ; 1. The differences in density between ROIs of inner and outer area of radicular cysts were smaller than those of periapical granulomas. 2. The equivalent circular diameter was over 6.3mm, there was significant difference between periapical cyst and periapical granuloma. 3. In differential diagnosis of radicular cyst and periapical granuloma using bone profile, sensitivity, spicificity and accuracy were considerably high(0.83, 0.86, 0.86) respectively. 4. Cumulative percentage frequency curve of the radicular cyst was closer to the pseudo-pixel value of 50 than average curve, whereas periapical granuloma was closer to that of 0. Hence we conclude that digital radiometric features might be useful in the differential diagnosis between radicular cyst and periapical granuloma.