Intraoral radiographs of dental implants in the edentulous mandible

Radiographs of dental implants in the edentulous mandible, which are suitable for evaluation studies, are difficult to obtain. This article describes the development of an aiming device for intraoral radiography of the crestal bone around the neck of dental implants. Error analysis of serial radiographs indicated only small deviations in reproducibility. Subsequently three methods of measurements of marginal bone level around the neck of dental implants are described, measurements with: 1. a computerized image analysis system, 2. a magnifying glass, and 3. a digital sliding gauge. The intra- and interobserver error analysis showed that determining the precise bone height on the image is responsible for a large standard deviation for each method. Measurements with a digital sliding gauge are preferable, since this method is easy to put into practice, whereas the accuracy matches the accuracy of the two other methods.