title: Alveolar bone graft evaluation agreement using cone beam computed tomography in cleft lip and palate patients: a pilot study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop and test assessor agreement using a new cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) examination method for evaluating the outcome of alveolar bone grafts in cleft lip and palate patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty patients with complete cleft lip and cleft palate who had undergone alveolar bone grafting with CBCT follow-up 3-6 months postoperative at the Faculty of Dentistry, Khon Kaen University were recruited into the study. Four trained clinical assessors (two orthodontists, an oral surgeon and an oral radiologist) had made a judgment of three outcome measurements: 1) cemento-enamel junction (CEJ) to marginal bone level of the teeth adjacent to the cleft site, 2) marginal bone level to root apex of the teeth adjacent to the cleft site, 3) labio-lingual alveolar bone grafted thickness. Repeat measurements were made by the same assessors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The Kappa values of intra-assessor agreements of each assessor were 0.82, 0.91, 0.91 and 1, respectively, while the inter-assessor agreements for the first and second time of determinations were 0.81 and 0.74.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This CBCT method for scoring alveolar bone graft outcomes produced good agreement among four assessors, which suggests its potential use to evaluate the success of alveolar bone grafting. In the future, this new method of alveolar bone graft evaluation should be compared with the standard method for testing validity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Khon Kaen University, Thailand. Tasanee@kku.ac.th
authors.forename: Tasanee
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wangsrimongkol
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.
authors.forename: Montian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Manosudprasit
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.
authors.forename: Poonsak
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pisek
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Diagnosis, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.
authors.forename: Pipop
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sutthiprapaporn
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.
authors.forename: Thanatpiya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Somsuk
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D064728:Alveolar Bone Grafting; D002648:Child; D002971:Cleft Lip / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery*; D002972:Cleft Palate / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery*; D054893:Cone-Beam Computed Tomography; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013785:Thailand