Evaluation of the Skeletal Maturation of Cervical Vertebrae with Magnetic Resonance Imaging: a piloty study

Abstract

Aims: The objective of the present study was to assess the skeletal maturation by means of three-dimensional models of the cervical vertebrae generated through segmentation of the magnetic resonance (MR) images by using medical software. Methods: Twenty MR images of the skull of male and female individuals aged between 8 and 22 years old were selected. Assessment of the images was performed by using the ITK-SNAP software, consisting of three steps: 1) vertebral segmentation; 2) three-dimensional reconstruction; and 3) classification of skeletal maturation. Two specialists in orthodontics and two specialists in dentomaxillofacial radiology assessed the images. Results: Analysis of reproducibility and repeatability were performed by using the RR method, with paired t-test also being applied to the repeatability factor together with Lin’s concordance coefficient. The significance level was set at 5%. It was found that there was no difference in the inter-rater reliability (P-value = 0.625), but without statistical repeatability. Conclusions: New tools, as 3D reconstruction software, enabled us to build an effective and friendly 3D-reconstruction system for classification of the skeletal maturation stages of cervical vertebrae.