NEW CEPHALOMETRIC IMAGES WITH A WORKSTATION - A PRELIMINARY-REPORT

Objective. This study was designed to test the feasibility of several types of enhancements for cephalometric computed radiographs through u se of the Fuji Computed Radiography system (Fuji Photo Film Corp., Tok yo, Japan). Study Design. The material consisted of four lateral cepha lograms made with the Fuji Computed Radiography system that were enhan ced by varying the gradient levels before processing. by means of both A-type (straight gradation) curves and workstation-type (peaked) curv es. The four workstation-type images were set with optical densities a t the peak of the curve at 1.5, 1.7, 1.9, and 2.1. Ten observers evalu ated eight anatomic landmarks comparing pairs of workstation-type imag es. The best workstation-type image was then compared with the A-type image for the same landmarks. Results. For the four workstation-type i mages the best visualization of the anatomic landmarks was seen with w orkstation-type image 3, which had a maximum optical density of 1.9. I mage 3 was also superior to the results of A-type image processing for most of the landmarks. Conclusion. Image enhancement with the applica tion of a computed radiography system is effective for study of latera l cephalograms.