NEW ASPECTS OF SEDIMENTATIONAL DETERMINATION OF MASTICATORY EFFICIENCY

Based on the consideration of actual masticatory eficiency as one of the key criteria of dental rehabilitation success the authors of the given article aimed at the development of their own masticatory test procedure which features the determination of the indicators of agar chopping and grinding. The experimental group comprised 95 volunteers whose task was to chop the offered patterns with the help of 10 masticatory movements in the free mode. Volunteers were involved into research on the basis of such criteria as intact dentitions and physiological occlusion. Their chopped fragments were collected and 95 digital images were acquired to be analysed with the help of specifically developed by authors plugin for the software ImageJ. The prospects of the further studies the authors see in the uses of the received results to determine the conditional norm and compare it with the indices acquired from the patients of different groups with malocclusion. The other application of these findings is possible assessment of the dynamics and results of orthopedic rehabilitation.


NEW ASPECTS OF SEDIMENTATIONAL DETERMINATION OF MASTICATORY EFFICIENCY
Based on the consideration of actual masticatory eficiency as one of the key criteria of dental rehabilitation success the authors of the given article aimed at the development of their own masticatory test procedure which features the determination of the indicators of agar chopping and grinding. The experimental group comprised 95 volunteers whose task was to chop the offered patterns with the help of 10 masticatory movements in the free mode. Volunteers were involved into research on the basis of such criteria as intact dentitions and physiological occlusion. Their chopped fragments were collected and 95 digital images were acquired to be analysed with the help of specifically developed by authors plugin for the software ImageJ. The prospects of the further studies the authors see in the uses of the received results to determine the conditional norm and compare it with the indices acquired from the patients of different groups with malocclusion. The other application of these findings is possible assessment of the dynamics and results of orthopedic rehabilitation.
Key words: chewing, masticatory efficiency, masticatory test patterns, index of chewing efficiency.
Masticatory efficiency is one of the most important criteria of patients' orthopedic rehabilitation. [1,3,4,6,8] Modern dentistry has several tools to evaluate the quality of food chopping and grinding. Most of them is based on the evaluation of the quality of masticatory test grinding, i.e. measuring particular dimensional fractions [2,5,7].
Research purpouse -at the obtaining masticatory test results and measuring their main parameters of grinding in the group of young people.
Material and methods. This research has been conducted in the scientific laboratory of the Department of Orthopedic Propedeutics of Higher Educational Institutuon of Ukraine -Ukrainian Medical Stomatological Academy‖, Poltava, Ukraine. Experimental group involved 95 volunteers aged from 18 to 22 who gave their voluntary informed consent to participate in the given research. Test participants were selected according to such criteria: no dentition defects; physiological (normal) occlusion; no pathological changes in both hard and soft tissues of the oral cavity.
Testees' task was to chew up a standard agar-made masticatory pattern. It was barrel-shaped, 20 mm in diameter and 10 mm high.The participants were encouraged to demostrate their free and random chewing limited to 10 masticatory movements. Then the research material was collected and shot for getting digital images of masticatory test fragments. The further data processing was performed with the help of software ImageJ.
A specific plugin was developed in advance to meet this requirement. A plugin is the chain of software functions for processing images which facilitates automatic measuring of the necessary indices. The acquired data were fixed and stored in the general table of the software Statistika10.0. Piloting statistical analysis was aimed at the determination of the correlation of numeric data in the given sampling and expected normal distribution in the population. As a result mean and median values were found. Parametric distribution of numeric data allowed the interpretation of the mean values in the sampling upper and lower quartiles as the upper and lower limits of ordinary values. Confidence level made up p<0,05.
Results and its discussion. The mean value of the number of masticatory test fragments sized 500 -1000 square pixels equalled 10,02 at the interquartile range from 7,0 to 13,0 and standard deviation of 0,42 ( fig. 1). While the mean value of the number of masticatory test fragments sized 50 -500 square pixels made up 38,44 ranging from 26,0 in the lower quartile to 49,0 in the upper one. So the mean value of the the Index of Chewing Efficiency (ICE) totalled 0,28 ranging from 0,19 in the lower quartile to 0,36 in the upper one.

Conclusion
In such a way, the results of the conducted research provided us with the mean values of the number of masticatory test fragments sized 50 -500 and 500 -1000 square pixels in the sampling lower and upper quartiles. On this basis the range of probable ICE values in case of normal value distribution in the population was determined. It can be treated as the conventional sign of normal state and used for further comparison with the similar indices received in clinical groups to follow their changes in masticatory efficiency as the diagnostic marker of either pathological process or orthopedic treatment results.