An. Law et al., DETECTING OSTEOPOROSIS USING DENTAL RADIOGRAPHS - A COMPARISON OF 4 METHODS, The Journal of the American Dental Association, 127(12), 1996, pp. 1734-1742
The authors evaluated dental radiographs for signs of osteoporosis usi
ng four methods: fractal dimension, microdensitometry, pixel intensity
and panoramic analysis of cortical thickness. The efficacy of these m
ethods also was compared against three standard bone density measurmen
t techniques used to diagnose osteoporosis in bones other than the jaw
s: quantitative computed tomography and single- and dual-photon absorp
tiometry. Pixel intensity was significantly more effective than the ot
her dental methods at distinguishing between radiographs from the oste
oporotic group and the control group, although fractal dimension and m
icrodensitometry methods also were effective.