The American Association of Orthodontists Foundation (AAOF) Craniofacial Growth Legacy Collection Project—aneffort to preserve irreplaceable samples of American and Canadianlongitudinal craniofacial growth records dating back more than 75years—recently announced that more than 400 cases have now been uploadedto the project’s Web site. Recent additions from the Wright StateUniversity Fels Longitudinal Study and the University of Oklahoma DenverGrowth Study more than doubled the number of images previouslyavailable in the searchable online database.
The collection now includes 4,400 lateral cephalometric radiographs,1,000 frontal cephalometric radiographs, and 500 hand-wrist radiographs.More than 6,000 images are available overall.
The Legacy Collection Project is in the process of digitizing films,study casts, and written records on subjects’ physical development fromnine of the 11 known collections of longitudinal craniofacial growthrecords in the United States and Canada. The records are deterioratingdue to the normal breakdown of radiographic images. Preserving theavailable records in digital form was deemed imperative because theseirreplaceable growth records serve as the basis of most of theinformation in contemporary orthodontic literature on craniofacialgrowth in children who did not have orthodontic treatment. The subjectsstudied were measured annually, beginning as young as age 2, andcontinuing, in many cases, until subjects were in their mid-20s. Thesemeasurements produced an extensive longitudinal record of craniofacialdevelopment among children who did not receive orthodontic treatment.
The Legacy Collection Project materials are offered at no charge toorthodontic residents, researchers, and other interested parties. Todate, more than 1,300 images have been delivered to researchers all overthe world.
Images will continue to be added to the Legacy Collection Project’sdatabase for the foreseeable future. The Web site’s functionality isbeing upgraded to facilitate improved searching and filtering, betterperformance for large collections, and improved display and interactionwith 3D study casts.
