Evaluation of radiographic magnification in lateral cephalograms obtained with different X-ray devices: experimental study in human dry skull

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of the magnification factor of the radiographic image in angular, linear and proportional measurements. METHODS: From a dried human skull where metallic spheres with predetermined size were fixed (1.0 mm), 14 radiographs were obtained in devices of three different manufacturers: Panoura, Instrumentarium and Tomeceph. The Pearson correlation test was used to investigate the relationship between the rate of radiographic magnification and the cephalometric measurements assessed. RESULTS: According to the results, the linear measurements showed a high positive correlation, pointing out great influence of the magnification factor, while the angular and proportional measurements did not correlate. CONCLUSIONS: Comparisons between linear cephalometric measurements obtained with different devices from the same manufacturer showed maximum rates of expansion of 0.6%, 1.25% and 2.3%, respectively, for the devices from Instrumentarium (OP-100, Instrumentarium, Finland), Panoura (10CSU, Yoshida, Japan) and Satelec/Tomeceph (XMind, Satelec/Tomeceph Orion Corporation, Finland).