Alveolar bone changes under overhanging restorations.

The aim of this study was to investigate changes in the trabecular architecture of the alveolar bone beneath overhanging restorations with bitewing radiographs in patients having no radiographically visible vertical bone loss. Twenty-eight digital bitewing radiographs with overhanging restorations and 28 digital bitewing radiographs without any restorations belonging to the contralateral side of the same patient were included in the study. Regions of interests (ROI) were created in the alveolar bone along the interproximal regions. These ROIs were segmented to binary images with ImageJ, and, within these binary images, the number of radiographically visible trabecular bone islands per unit area was counted; in addition, the Feret diameter and fractal dimension (FD) were measured. It was found that the mean number of objects per unit area was statistically different in alveolar bone with overhanging restorations from control sites (p < 0.0001). However, the FeD (p = 0.179) and FD (p = 0.963) did not show statistically significant differences between alveolar bone with and without overhanging restorations.