Comparative Analysis between Manual and Digital Cephalometric Tracing

Cephalometric radiography is an important tool in diagnosis, prognosis, treatment planning and evaluation. The study is a comparative analysis between manual and digital cephalometric tracing to establish whether there is a statistically significant difference in the measured angular values. Materials and methods 34 cephalograms were traced in 3 different methods - manual and digital using 2 different software programs. The manual cephalometric analyses were traced using x-ray lightbox, 0.5 mm HB pencil and protractor. For the digital profile analyses, cephalograms were scanned and traced with 3Txer 2.6.0. Inc (Korea) and OrthoDental (Bulgaria) software programs. All the analyses were performed by one operator 2 times within 30 days. Data from the three methods was processed by statistical package IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 and level of significance pless than0.05. Results The results showed closer values between the digital tracing with 3Txer and Orthodental to manual tracing. The greatest relative difference (4.2 %) occurred in the measurements of M/Occ angle, followed by the M/F angle (3.8 %). The smallest relative difference was established in i/M angle (0.4 %). Conclusion The used comparative analysis showed there was no statistically significant difference between the number of maximal error between the three different methods.