In a step to have better connection with our users, forums have been integrated into Marcilan. The same login/pass can be used to login to both the site and forums to make things less frustrating. Powered by Simple Press, we hope it will give our users better experience. Please let us know what you think and if you have any feedback or questions access the forums either from the top navigation bar or the forums page on the side and happy posting.

The cysts category and benign tumors category have been consolidated. All the images now have arrows and all their reports have been updated. If you find any missing information or typos  and we know you will, please let us know. The only category left if bone diseases manifested in the jaws. After that, new diseases will be added periodically. Videos will follow later.

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There has been much going on lately and I have been preoccupied with preparation for my master thesis  defense. The website is going through a consolidation process. To keep you updated, here is what to be expected:

• All the reports will be completely re-written, this was necessary for MARCILAN in order to have independent reports and to accommodate for the inclusion of pre-op and post-op reports. So they will be integrated into a universal report.
• Image description below each gallery image will be updated to reflect the updated report.
• Arrows have been added partially and reports have been updated. However, it might be better to place arrows on all the images instead of few selected ones.
• Over 120 DICOM data sets for patients have been already exported for NewTom 3G cases and works is being carried out to get the DICOM data for the Scanora Cone Beam CT cases. This will allow MARCILAN to have 3D QTVR movies for all the cases. The movies will be placed at the end of each report to make navigating the report easier.

QuickTime VR 360 is introduced into Marcilan for the first time. Using QTVR for visualizing pathology is a novel idea, although you lose some information going to volume from 2D slices but you gain extra spacial information , better correlation and appreciation of the radiographic features, and an excellent patient communication.

This is unprecedented; as QTVR allows you to navigate the volumetric data as if you were using sophisticated 3D visualization software. You can navigate by using your mouse and keyboard. Besides it is cheap, easy to share, and fast to produce using Osirix open-source software on the Mac platform. The first disease to benefit from this is Basal cell nevus syndrome (Case03). Volume render tends to produce holes in the area where there is too much thinning of the cortical boundaries even when adjusting 16 bit CLUT (Color LUT) parameters and window leveling. Simply put, it is not the best rendering modality suited for this task. However, MIP was fantastic in presenting the ultra thin cortical borders in 3D without such problems and proved to be the best. more…

I am glad to inform you that Marcilan has received his first award. I received the Turner research award from North Carolina American Association for Dental Research which is given for excellency in research. This is great news for me, for everyone involved in the development, and for Marcilan. Hopefully more to come

The following diseases have been added:
Central giant cell granuloma, aneurysmal bone cyst, cemento-ossifying fibroma, and florid osseous dysplasia!
Check them under bone diseases manifested in jaws category.

I had to pull back for a second to review the galleries I have implemented so far. I noticed several issues that I didn’t notice before. Many of the reports have white blocks and the reason for that I believe is because these reports are meant for printing primarily and for viewing secondarily. Now all those white blocks are black. more…

The following diseases has been added: Lateral Periodontal Cyst, Simple Bone Cyst, Calcifying Odontogenic Cyst.

New category added: Bone diseases manifested in jaws.

For two consecutive days I have been trying to resolve an issue with  Slideing notes and Shadowbox JS plugin which I use to generate interactive galleries for my reports cases. The issue was on certain circumstances sliding window will not open the case report. Instead, it will remove all the page content. Without solving that dilemma, adding more cases would deem to be impossible. more…