Comparison of CT-Number and Gray Scale Value of Different Dental Materials and Hard Tissues in CT and CBCT

Computed tomography (CT) and cone-beam CT (CBCT) are valuable diagnostic aids for many clinical applications. This study was designed to compare the gray scale value (GSV) and Hounsfield unit (HU) of selected dental materials and various hard tissues using CT or CBCT. Three samples of all test materials including amalgam (AM), composite resin (CR), glass ionomer (GI), zinc-oxide eugenol (ZOE), calcium-enriched mixture (CEM) cement, AH-26 root canal sealer (AH-26), gutta-percha (GP), Coltosol (Col), Dycal (DL), mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA), zinc phosphate (ZP), and polycarbonate cement (PC) were prepared and scanned together with samples of bone, dentin and enamel using two CBCT devices, Scanora 3D (S3D) and NewTom VGi (NTV) and a spiral CT (SCT) scanner (Somatom Emotion 16 multislice spiral CT);. Subsequently, the HU and GSV values were determined and evaluated. The data were analyzed by the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. The level of significance was determined at 0.05. There were significant differences among the three different scanners (P