• The korean journal of orthodontics
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.289-299
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• 2009

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of Head Posture Aligner (HPA) during cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) scan in generation of frontal cephalograms using 3D CBCT images. Methods: CBCT scans and frontal cephalograms were made in 30 adult individuals. While a couple of CBCT scan was made for one subject, one was made with conventional method, without use of HPA, the other was acquired with the use of HPA. After creation of virtual frontal cephalogram from each 3D CBCT image, it was traced and compared with the tracing of real frontal cephalogram. Results: In the comparison of the measurements, the virtual cephalograms with the use of HPA did not show statistically significant differences with the real cephalograms whereas the virtual cephalograms without the use of HPA presented significant differences with real cephalograms in many measurements. In the correlation analysis with the measurements of the real cephalograms, the virtual cephalograms with the use of HPA showed higher correlations in all measurements than the virtual cephalograms without the use of HPA. Conclusions: Measurements from CBCT-generated cephalograms become similar to those from real cephalograms with the use of HPA during CBCT scan. Thus, the use of HPA is suggested during the CBCT scan in order to construct accurate virtual frontal cephalograms using 3D CBCT images.