Accuracy of alveolar bone height and thickness measurements in cone beam computed tomography: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective. The aim of this study was to systematically review and assess the accuracy of cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) in the measurement of alveolar bone height and thickness. Study Design. MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane Library, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and the gray literature were searched to identify all relevant articles published before July 2018. The Quality Assessment of Measurement Accuracy Studies tool was used to assess the quality of the included studies. Meta-analysis was performed to analyze the mean differences in alveolar bone height and thickness measurements between CBCT and gold standard references (direct measurement on human skulls or live patients). Results. In total, 28 studies were included in the qualitative synthesis, and 18 were included in the quantitative synthesis. The meta-analysis results showed that the mean differences between CBCT measurements and the gold standard references for alveolar bone height (mean difference=0.03 mm; 95% confidence interval -0.03 to 0.08; P=.382) and alveolar bone thickness (mean difference=0.11 mm; 95% confidence interval -0.02 to 0.24; P=.088) were not statistically significant. Conclusions. Current evidence suggests that there is no significant difference between CBCT and the gold standard references for the measurement of alveolar bone height and thickness.