Yasar, Akgunlu Evaluating the mandibular cortical shape with radiographs were scanned in 300 dots per inch these techniques would eliminate the observer resolution with a scanner having transparency dependency and might improve the usefulness adaptor. Image processing and analyzing was of mandibular cortical shape in screening performed with ImageJ program.23 On these osteoporotic patients. radiographs region of interests (ROI), where best The aim of this study was to evaluate represents the mandibular cortical morphology whether Fractal Dimension and Lacunarity were created both in left and right side. FD in box- can discriminate patients having different MCI counting method and Lacunarity were calculated classifications. from these ROIs and the mean values of them were used in the study. MAteRIALs And MetHods The radiographs were arbitrarily rotated until Randomly selected panoramic radiographs the basal cortical bone where the ROI will be of 52 patients which were taken during routine created becomes parallel to the horizontal plane dental examination were included to the study (Figure 1). The ROIs extended in the medio-lateral (2002 CC Proline PlanMeca Helsinki Finland). direction and when creating ROIs, great care was None of the patients had systemic disease which shown to include only the inferior cortical bone effects bone metabolism and their ages were of the mandible (Figure 2). Digital images were between 40-64. In the first part of the study, segmented to binary image as described by White the panoramic radiographs were evaluated for and Rudolph.24 The ROIs were duplicated and MCI classification by the same observer three blurred by a Gaussian filter with a diameter of 35 times with four weeks intervals. The agreement pixels. The resulting heavily blurred image was between the observations was calculated with then subtracted from the original, and 128 was weighted Kappa statistics. added to the result at each pixel location. The Among these panoramic radiographs, 22 image was then made binary, thresholding on a of them which were evaluated as Class 1 in brightness value of 128 and inverted. With this at least two observations were accepted as method, the regions which represent trabecular Class 1; accordingly 20 panoramic radiographs bone were set to white and porosities of the were accepted as Class 2 and 10 panoramic cortical bone were set to black (Figure 3). The radiographs were accepted as Class 3. These aim of this operation was to reflect individual variations in the image such as cortical bone and porosities. Fractal Dimension and Lacunarity were calculated with ImageJ plugin named FracLacCirc (First Version). FracLacCirc calculates the box counting Fractal Dimension using a shifting grid algorithm that does multiple scans on each image, and it is suitable for analyzing images of biological cells and textures. It works on only Figure 1. Rotated cropped panoramic radiograph. Figure 2. ROI extending from distal to the mental foramen distally. Figure 3. Binary form of the ROI. October 2008 - Vol.2 Figure 1. Rotated cropped panoramic radiograph. 285 European Journal of Dentistry