Identification of mandibular canal in cone beam computed tomography plane with different voxel sizes

INTRODUCTION: Identification of the mandibular canal (MC) is essential before any lower jaw surgical procedures. Understanding the anatomical variations of the MC is essential for preventing postoperative complications. OBJECTIVES: We assessed the observer agreement for identifying the MC in cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images and to study the effect of changing the voxel size on such agreements. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We obtained images of mandibles from ten dry skulls using a water phantom with two voxels: 0.18 and 0.3 mm. The identification of the MC was made in five sites bilaterally in each mandible by two examiners. RESULTS: A total of 82 sites were included. Differences in measurements between images obtained with each scanning protocol and the reference images were calculated using descriptive statistics. There was an agreement between the two examiners in identifying the MC in CBCT images. No significant differences were found for identifying the MC when the voxel sizes were changed. There was a strong correlation coefficient between the two examiners for both voxel sizes (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: This study showed that voxel size, in the range from 0.18 to 0.3 mm, has no direct effect on the identification of the MC.