Contribution of the digital image to the assessment of quality in endodontic obturation.

Every stage of the endodontic treatment should be equally approached, giving each one the same importance: correct diagnosis, treatment orientation, meticulous cleaning and instrumentation and a sufficiently compacted obturation that would guarantee the impermeable sealing of the root-canal in its apical, lateral and coronal levels, coronal reconstruction and distance control. Having defined obturation as the replacement of the space achieved in the surgical preparation of the root-canal by an inert or antiseptic, stable, three-dimensional and permanent material, its priority objective is to operate as an impregnable barrier to liquids and bacteria and the material for obturation must be sufficiently compacted to be radiographically acceptable. Several studies have shown that the therapeutic successes and failures are closely related to the quality of the obturation and its transverse compaction. Traditionally, the assessment of the endodontic obturation quality has been done by radiographic observations of: the apical limit of obturation, the degree of compaction and the coronal obturation. (16). Yet this analogical view is limited, since it records a three- dimensional image on a plane. Even though every technique is valuable, none of them meets totally our expectations to estimate the quality of obturation. The digital images are those obtained both by direct methods through radiopvisiograhs or Digoras systems and indirect ones through scanned x-rays. The digital images provide a new tool that enables us to visualize from another viewpoint the slight differences of gray concentrations. The aims suggested for this work were as follows: digitalizing of periapical X-rays, applying some tools of a program of digital image treatment, and determining if they themselves favor the assessment of the endodontic obturation compaction.. 15 periapical radiographic plates from patients of the undergraduates of the Chair of Endodontics of the School of Dentistry of Rosario were selected. These plates corresponded to teeth with sealed canals. Some were assessed as acceptably well condensed and others as poorly condensed.The radiographic plates were ";scanned"; using an Agfa Scanner, and transforming them into digital images. For the image processing the ";IMAGE TOOL";® program was chosen The images are treated through the different tools.. The data was statistically processed and summarized in a table.