title: Evaluation of dental morphometrics during the orthodontic treatment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Diagnostic orthodontic and prosthetic procedures commence with an initial examination, during which a number of individual findings on occlusion or malocclusion are clarified. Nowadays we try to replace standard plaster casts by scanned objects and digital models.
  
  
  METHODS
  Geometrically calibrated images aid in the comparison of several different steps of the treatment and show the variation of selected features belonging to individual biomedical objects. The methods used are based on geometric morphometrics, making a new approach to the evaluation of the variability of features. The study presents two different methods of measurement and shows their accuracy and reliability.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The experimental part of the present paper is devoted to the analysis of the dental arch objects of 24 patients before and after the treatment using the distances between the canines and premolars as the features important for diagnostic purposes. Our work proved the advantage of measuring digitalized orthodontic models over manual measuring of plaster casts, with statistically significant results and accuracy sufficient for dental practice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A new method of computer imaging and measurements of a dental stone cast provides information with the precision required for orthodontic treatment. The results obtained point to the reduction in the variance of the distances between the premolars and canines during the treatment, with a regression coefficient RC=0.7 and confidence intervals close enough for dental practice. The ratio of these distances pointed to the nearly constant value of this measure close to 0.84 for the given set of 24 individuals.
authors.forename: Magdaléna
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kašparová
authors.affiliation: Department of Computing and Control Engineering, Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague, Technická 5, 166 28 Prague 6, Czech Republic. A.Prochazka@ieee.org.
authors.forename: Aleš
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Procházka
authors.forename: Lucie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Grajciarová
authors.forename: Mohammadreza
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yadollahi
authors.forename: Oldřich
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Vyšata
authors.forename: Tat'jana
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dostálová
mesh_terms: D002370:Casts, Surgical; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D009970:Orthodontics / Q000379:methods*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012984:Software; D014070:Tooth / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000601:surgery*