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Reliability of mandibular cortical index and mandibular bone mineral density in the detection of osteoporotic women

B Çakur^*,1, S Dagistan¹, A ahin², A Harorli¹ and AB Yilmaz¹

¹Department of Oral Diagnosis and Oral Radiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Atatürk University, Erzurum, Turkey; ²Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Atatürk University, Erzurum, Turkey

*Correspondence to: Binali Çakur, Department of Oral Diagnosis and Oral Radiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Atatürk University, 25240, Erzurum, Turkey; E-mail: bcakur{at}atauni.edu.tr

Received 5 March 2008; revised 10 May 2008; accepted 16 May 2008

Objectives: Measuring the bone mineral density (BMD) of the femur and lumbar vertebrae has been the traditional method for determining osteoporosis in women. In this study, we tried to determine the relationships between mandibular dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (m-DXA) values obtained with a new methodology, mandibular cortical index (MCI), total BMD values of the femur and lumbar vertebrae in 80 women with osteoporosis determined by DXA in conformity with T-score thresholds, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Methods: m-DXA and panoramic radiography were performed on 80 women with osteoporosis. m-DXA was calculated by manual analysis of DXA scans. MCI was determined by the appearance of the mandibles on panoramic radiographs. DXA measurements of the skeletal BMD (femur and lumbar vertebras) and MCI values were also calculated. Correlations between these variables were assessed.

Results: Although there were no correlations between skeletal BMD (total BMD values of the femur and lumbar vertebras) and mandibular measurements (mDXA and MCI), we found that there was a significant correlation between the skeletal BMDs (r = 0.355, P  =  0.001).

Conclusions: It is concluded that no significant correlations were found between the mandibular and non-mandibular measures in women with osteoporosis.

Keywords: dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, mandibular cortical index, mandibular bone mineral density; osteoporosis