Reliability and Reproducibility of Manual and Automated Volumetric Measurements of Periapical Lesions

•Automated segmentation is precisely performed with software for dentistry.•Automated volume measurements present slightly higher precision.•Manual and automated segmentation are strongly correlated.•Automated segmentation takes less time to be performed.

IntroductionThe present study aimed to test the reliability and reproducibility of 2 methods: manual and automated segmentation (using a threshold-based region growing algorithm) for measuring the volume of periapical lesions.MethodsA total of 43 cone-beam computed tomographic scans (14 men and 29 women, mean age of 54.6 ± 8.5 years) were analyzed by 3 observers. Intraobserver reproducibility and interobserver reliability were assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient. Parametric correlation between manual and automated volumetric measurements was performed. In addition, the Student t test was also used to compare the mean time required for manual and automated volumetric measurements.ResultsAutomated segmentation showed slightly higher intraclass correlation coefficient values for all observers. A strong significant correlation was found between manual and automated volumetric measurements performed by the 3 observers. A significant difference in the mean procedure time was also found between both methods (P = .001).ConclusionsWithin the limitations of this study, the present results suggest that automated segmentation with a region growing algorithm is faster and slightly more reliable to calculate the volume of periapical lesions.