Abstract
Radiographic examination and probing examination are the traditional methods of diagnosing furcation involvements. Especially, radiographic diagnosis is important to find such a lesion in an early phase. However, morphology of the furcation fornix and bony defects are difficult to interpret from two-dimensional radiographic images. Delay of finding such lesions is one reason for unfavorable prognosis after periodontal treatment of furcation involvement. The purpose of this study was to clarify the differences between radiographic images and real bone defects. In order to observe the furcation defects, we produced them using human dry skulls. Radiographic techniques used were conventional periapical technique and the digital radiography. The results suggested that the samples that had thin compact bone and flat morphology of the interradicular septum, relatively showed high radiolucency. On the other hand, samples that had thick compact bone and concave figure on interradicular septum, likely to display low radiolucency.
