Magnetic resonance imaging texture analysis for quantitative evaluation of the mandibular condyle in juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

OBJECTIVES: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the joints and other organs, including the development of the former in a growing child. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of texture analysis (TA) based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to provide biomarkers that serve to identify patients likely to progress to temporomandibular joint damage by associating JIA with age, gender and disease onset age. METHODS: The radiological database was retrospectively reviewed. A total of 45 patients were first divided into control group (23) and JIA group (22). TA was performed using grey-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) parameters, in which 11 textural parameters were calculated using MaZda software. These 11 parameters were ranked based on the p value obtained with ANOVA and then correlated with age, gender and disease onset age. RESULTS: Significant differences in texture parameters of condyle were demonstrated between JIA group and control group (p < 0.05). There was a progressive loss of uniformity in the grayscale pixels of MRI with an increasing age in JIA group. CONCLUSIONS: MRI TA of the condyle can make it possible to detect the alterations in bone marrow of patients with JIA and promising tool which may help the image analysis.

Texture analysis of cone-beam computed tomography images assists the detection of furcal lesion.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to apply texture analysis (TA) to cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans of patients with grade C periodontitis for detection of non-visible changes in the image. METHODS: TA was performed on CBCT scans of 34 patients with grade C periodontitis. Axial sections of CBCT were divided into three groups as follows: Group L (lesion) in which there is a furcal lesion with periodontal bone loss; Group I (intermediate) in which the border of the furcal lesion has normal characteristics; and Group C (control) in which the area is healthy. Eleven texture parameters were extracted from the region of interest. Mann-Whitney U test was used to assess the differences in the texture between the three groups as follows: L versus I; L versus C, and I versus C. RESULTS: Statistically significant differences (P <0.05) were observed in almost all parameters in the intergroup analyses (i.e., L versus I and L versus C). However, statistical differences were smaller in groups I versus C in which only entropy of sum, entropy of difference, mean of sum, and variance of difference were statistically different (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: TA can potentially provide prognostic information to improve the diagnostic accuracy in the grading of the tissue around the furcal lesion, thus potentially accelerating the treatment decision-making process.