• Briggs L

• Cervical Vertebrae
• Manipulation, Chiropractic
• Radiography

Objective: This study evaluated 3-dimensional (3D) assessments of points of interest on a phantom replica of the human skull and cervical vertebrae to better understand how structures are represented in space using mathematical methods.

Methods: Three basic geometric equations derived from the “Law of Similar Triangles” are introduced, and measurements are taken after 4 trials to demonstrate how 3D data extracted from 2-dimensional (2D) digitized radiographic pairs can be used to produce coordinate points associated with 3 areas on the atlas.

Results: An analysis of variance test for multiple group comparison shows no significant statistical difference between 4 trials (P = 0.995). In addition, 6 strong positive correlations are evident using Pearson product-moment coefficient test (r = 0.9008 through 0.9977, P = 0.002).

Conclusion: This study suggests that it is possible to use coplanar stereoscopic radiographic pairs to define an object's location in 3D space by taking retrospective measurements directly from 2D digitized radiographs.

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