Diagnosis of TMJ degenerative diseases by panoramic radiography: is it possible? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this work was to determine the diagnostic accuracy of panoramic radiography in detecting degenerative diseases of the temporomandibular joint. METHOD: The protocol was registered at the PROSPERO website. To consider the eligibility of studies to be included/excluded from this review, the acronym "PIRDS" was used and appropriate word combinations and truncations were adapted in the following electronic databases: PubMed/Medline, EMBASE, Latin American and Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences, Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane Library. RESULTS: A total of 2572 references, after the removal of duplicates, were retrieved from the eight electronic databases. After reading the titles and abstracts, a total of 26 articles were selected for full reading, of which ten were excluded, resulting in 16 articles included for qualitative synthesis. All in vivo studies were classified as having a low risk of bias. Regarding in vitro studies none of the included studies scored below 80% in the overall evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: Both in vitro and in vivo studies consistently report a low accuracy in detecting degenerative diseases of the temporomandibular joint using panoramic radiography. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Cone-beam computed tomography offers a superior image quality without overlapping structures and a higher accuracy compared to panoramic radiography. However, panoramic radiography can still serve as an initial examination when combined with a clinical assessment. CBCT should be reserved for cases where there are evident clinical and/or radiographic alterations that recommend its use. This approach ensures a judicious and cost-effective use of CBCT resources.

Copper leaching from recreational vessel antifouling paints in freshwater: A Berlin case study.

Copper leached from recreational vessel antifouling paints can pose a threat to aquatic organisms. To date, leaching rates have mainly been studied in seawater and brackish water. The aim of this study was to investigate the copper input from antifouling paints to freshwater using field and laboratory studies. Therefore, a large sailing area in Berlin was sampled. According to a risk assessment, the use of copper containing antifouling paints in Berlins is predicted to have no significant impact on aquatic organisms. An exception was found in sport boat marinas where, in dependence on the boat number, the sediment copper concentrations were up to 2 times higher than the German environmental quality standard for sediments. The most important result revealed by the laboratory batch tests is that the copper leaching rate in freshwater is much lower compared to seawater and brackish water. The dissolution of copper from antifouling paints into freshwater is overestimated up to now. Nevertheless, the leached copper from antifouling paints is the second largest anthropogenic copper source in the urban area of Berlin and the third largest anthropogenic copper source in German freshwaters.