Measurement of the midpalatal suture width

Objective: To conduct a pilot study to investigate the potentiality to determine the midpalatal sutural width radiographically with a flat-panel volume computed tomography (fpVCT) in a porcine model. Materials and Methods: Bone samples from the midpalatal suture of five young (16 weeks) and five old (200 weeks) sus scrofa domestica were gathered. The midpalatal suture width was measured via fpVCT and compared to respective histological preparations. Results with P < .05 were considered significant. Results: The data obtained by fpVCT and by histomorphometric analysis reveal a highly significant age dependency of the measured suture width (both P < .0001), with lower suture width values in older subjects compared to the younger group. The averaged suture widths measured in the fpVCT images shows a distinctively higher mean compared to the histomorphometric data with high statistical significance (P < .0001). The evaluated difference between both methods was almost constant. Conclusion: fpVCT is a powerful tool for determining midpalatal sutural width.