Novel method to delineate palatal rugae and assess their complexity using fractal analysis
Scientific reports(2022)
摘要
Palatal rugae constitute significant morphological landmarks, with wide clinical applications in forensics, insertion of mini-screws, and superimposition. Their morphology has been studied mainly with indices relevant to their qualitative characteristics. The present paper aims at presenting a new quantitative method to evaluate their complexity, by means of box-counting fractal dimension analysis, and to investigate its inter- and intra-rater reliability. Twenty maxillary plaster models were scanned for the needs of this study. A sequence of steps, including cropping of the mesh, ball pivoting, distance mapping and fractal dimension analysis, performed with Viewbox 4 software, was followed. Box-counting fractal dimensions were calculated as a measure of rugae’s complexity. Inter- and intra-rater reliability were investigated, using Bland–Altman analysis. Fractal dimensions ranged from 1.274 to 1.491 (average: 1.412). Bland–Altman analysis of inter- and intra-examiner reliability demonstrated that the 95% limits of agreement ranged from − 0.012 to 0.011 and from − 0.004 to 0.004, respectively. The method is reliable and can be applied in research and forensics. It offers comprehensive evaluation of the rugae’s complexity and a complete set of information about their outlines and height profiles, with minimum user intervention.
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关键词
Dentistry,Diagnosis,Forensic dentistry,Orthodontics,Science,Humanities and Social Sciences,multidisciplinary
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