Comparison of speed and precision of manual viz a viz computer assisted cephalometric measurements

ObjectivesThe present study was undertaken for comparing measurements of various cephalometric parameters obtained by hand tracing method with those obtained by computerized software on direct digital lateral cephalograms and scanned lateral cephalograms so as to determine the validity of tracing methods and time required.MethodsThe study sample comprised of hard and soft copy of 100 digital lateral cephalometric radiographs from archives. The study sample was divided into three groups, Group A – comprised of hard copy of radiographs which were traced manually, Group B – comprised of direct digital images and Group C – comprised of scanned images. Both were traced using cephalometric software NemoCeph NX 2006. 18 cephalometric parameters were evaluated.Result30 cephalograms were traced in each group. After ascertaining intra operator reliability rest of the cephalograms were traced. On comparing different groups, statistically significant differences were found for various parameters but the differences were not clinically significant.ConclusionThe validity and reproducibility of various cephalometric parameters by manual tracing and software tracing of direct digital images and scanned images of lateral cephalogram were found to be highly correlated. In comparison to manual method, tracing using cephalometric software provides a significant time advantage.