Radiologic assessment of bone healing after orthognathic surgery using fractal analysis

Purpose : To evaluate the radiographic change of operation sites after orthognathic surgery using the digital image processing and fractal analysis. Materials and Methods : A series of panoramic radiographs of thirty-five randomly selected patients who had undergone mandibular orthognathic surgery (bilateral sagittal split ramus osteotomy) without clinical complication for osseous healing, were taken. The panoramic radiographs of each selected patient were taken at pre-operation (stage 0), 1 or 2 days after operation (stage 1), 1 month after operation (stage 2), 6 months after operation (stage 3), and 12 months after operation (stage 4). The radiographs were digitized at 600 dpi, 8 bit, and 256 gray levels. The region of interest, centered on the bony gap area of the operation site, was selected and the fractal dimension was calculated by using the tile-counting method. The mean values and standard deviations of fractal dimension for each stage were calculated and the differences among stage 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 were evaluated through repeated measures of the ANOVA and paired t-test. Results : The mean values and standard deviations of the fractal dimensions obtained from stage 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 were 1.658±0.048, 1.580±0.050, 1.607±0.046, 1.624±0.049, and 1.641 ±0.061, respectively. The fractal dimensions from stage 1 to stage 4 were shown to have a tendency to increase (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The tendency of the fractal dimesion to increase relative to healing time may be a useful means of evaluating post-operative bony healing of the osteotomy site.