REPRODUCIBILITY OF BEAM ALIGNMENT USING DIFFERENT BITE-WING RADIOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES

Longitudinal radiographic assessment of crestal alveolar bone plays an important role in the diagnosis and long-term evaluation of periodont al disease in patients. Because practitioners use several radiographic techniques to obtain bite-wing radiographs, horizontal and vertical a lignment errors could adversely affect the diagnostic impression gaine d from this type of radiographic examination. The objective of this st udy was to determine the alignment reproducibility of three different clinical techniques used to acquire bite-wing radiographs. Patients wh o require bite-wing radiographs as part of a dental school screening p rocess were radiographed with modified standard bite-wing tabs and two different intraoral positioning devices. Horizontal and vertical angu lar deviations were measured and alignment errors were calculated for each radiograph. The mean total angular alignment error for the standa rd bite-wing tab technique was 6.2 degrees, whereas the mean alignment error for both positioning devices was less than 1.8 degrees. The res ults of this study suggest that an intraoral positioning device for ac quiring bite-wing radiographs should be used.