TECHNICAL REPORT Image quality evaluation of small FOV and large FOV CBCT devices for oral and maxillofacial radiology 1,2,3 Jean-Philippe Dillenseger, 3,4 Catherine-Isabelle Gros, 4 Amira Sayeh, 5 Johary Rasamimanana, 5 Fabrice Lawniczak, 2,3,6 Jean-Marie Leminor, 1 Jean-François Matern, 1 Andr´ e Constantinesco, 3,4 Fabien Bornert and 1,2,3 Philippe Choquet 1 Imagerie Pr´ eclinique, P ˆ ole d’imagerie, Hˆ opitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France; 2 Icube, ´ equipe MMB, CNRS, Universit´ e de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France; 3 F´ ed´ eration de M´ edecine Translationnelle de Strasbourg, Facult´ e de M´ edecine, Universit´ e de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France; 4 Facult´ e de Chirurgie Dentaire, Universit´ e de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France; 5 Icube, ´ equipe M´ ecaflu, Universit´ e de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France; 6 Institut d’Anatomie Normale, Universit´ e de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France Objectives: Quantitative and qualitative image quality evaluation of two different dental CBCT scanners. Methods: Two CBCT systems were evaluated in this study: one small field-of-view (FOV) (50-mm diameter) system that also allows two-dimensional (2D) dental panoramic imaging and one large FOV CBCT system (60–180-mm diameter). These devices were all tested with installed acquisition default modes and proprietary reconstruction software, enabling high- resolution bone imaging. Quantitative analyses were carried out to measure spatial resolution, linearity and homogeneity. Small-size phantoms and a human dry skull were used to evaluate intrinsic performances. Visual qualitative analyses of specific anatomical parts were blindly performed by 10 operators. Results: Concerning spatial resolution, small-voxel size protocols provide equivalent results on the two apparatus. In terms of linearity, all systems are highly linear (0.98 , r 2 , 0.99) over the range of signal intensities encountered. Our results, coming from either phantoms or the dry skull, demonstrate that the small FOV CBCT suffers from a lack of homogeneity. Conclusions: For limited oral and maxillofacial volume imaging (diameter , 50 mm), the polyvalent small FOV CBCT (2D and three-dimensional imaging) system used in this study could reach performances similar to those of the large FOV CBCT. Dentomaxillofacial Radiology (2017) 46, 20160285. doi: 10.1259/dmfr.20160285 Cite this article as: Dillenseger J-P, Gros C-I, Sayeh A, Rasamimanana J, Lawniczak F, Leminor J-M, et al. Image quality evaluation of small FOV and large FOV CBCT devices for oral and maxillofacial radiology. Dentomaxillofac Radiol 2017; 46: 20160285. Keywords: CBCT; bone imaging; dental imaging; quantitative evaluation; radiologic phantoms Introduction Diagnosis of thin dentomaxillary lesions requires high- definition bone imaging. Nowadays, X-ray CT is the best available technique for studying bone and dental structures. Clinical applications concerning the oral and maxillofacial (OMF) region need not only high resolution (e.g. dentoalveolar traumatology), but also enough contrast (e.g. detection of radiolucent findings before they could be visualized on conven- tional radiographs). Since early 2000, 1,2 specific CT architectures were designed for high-resolution skull bone imaging using a flat-panel detector called CBCT. Several designs of CBCT exist which could be separated into two groups: 3 Correspondence to: Mr Jean-Philippe Dillenseger. E-mail: jp.dillenseger@unistra.fr Received 6 July 2016; revised 29 July 2016; accepted 30 August 2016 Dentomaxillofacial Radiology (2017) 46, 20160285 ª 2016 The Authors. Published by the British Institute of Radiology birpublications.org/dmfr