The aim of this study was to evaluate the concordance of 2- and 3-dimensional radiography and histopathology in the diagnosis of periapical lesions.
Patients were consecutively enrolled in this study provided that preoperative periapical radiography (PR) and cone-beam computed tomographic imaging of the tooth to be treated with apical surgery were performed. The periapical lesional tissue was histologically analyzed by 2 blinded examiners. The final histologic diagnosis was compared with the radiographic assessments of 4 blinded observers. The initial study material included 62 teeth in the same number of patients.
Four lesions had to be excluded during processing, resulting in a final number of 58 evaluated cases (31 women and 27 men, mean age = 55 years). The final histologic diagnosis of the periapical lesions included 55 granulomas (94.8%) and 3 cysts (5.2%). Histologic analysis of the tissue samples from the apical lesions exhibited an almost perfect agreement between the 2 experienced investigators with an overall agreement of 94.83% (kappa = 0.8011). Radiographic assessment overestimated cysts by 28.4% (cone-beam computed tomographic imaging) and 20.7% (periapical radiography), respectively. Comparing the correlation of the radiographic diagnosis of 4 observers with the final histologic diagnosis, 2-dimensional (kappa = 0.104) and 3-dimensional imaging (kappa = 0.111) provided only minimum agreement.
To establish a final diagnosis of an apical radiolucency, the tissue specimen should be evaluated histologically and specified as a granuloma (with/without epithelium) or a cyst. Analysis of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional radiographic images alike results only in a tentative diagnosis that should be confirmed with biopsy.