Evaluation of growth and development period according to spheno-occipital synchondrosis fusion stages in cone-beam computed tomography with ImageJ program

Spheno-occipital synchondrosis (SOS) is an important growth area in the craniofacial skeleton. It has been explored in research relate to age assessment and forensic medicine due to its closure in the postnatal period. The aim of this study is to evaluate the growth and development period of SOS on cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images with pseudo-color imaging depend on fusion stages. In this cross-sectional retrospective study, 280 CBCT sagittal sections' images (163 women, 117 men) were used to evaluate the SOS fusion stages by dividing them into five categories. ImageJ version 1.3 software was used to analyze. SOS stages and histogram analyzes were evaluated. The significance level was set at p = 0.05. In the evaluation of synchondrosis stages according to gender and age, the incidence of stages 4 and 5 in individuals aged 15-25 years was statistically significantly higher (p < 0.01) compared to stages 1 and 2 in individuals aged 5-14 years. The mean minimum, maximum and open histogram values of synchondroses in the same age group were also statistically significantly higher (p < 0.05). In the assessment of synchondrosis maturation using three-way ROC analysis, histogram analyses indicated Stage 1 for data below 68.33, Stage 3 for data above 104.5, and Stage 2 for values in between. ImageJ histogram analysis can numerically reveal radiographic differences between SOS fusion stages and can perform staging on pseudo-colored cross-sectional CBCT images. Different image processing software can reveal differences between phases through false coloring.