Reliability of panoramic radiographic indices in identifying osteoporosis among postmenopausal women

Abstract

Objective: Osteoporosis has several manifestations in the jaw bones, and these changes can be identified by the dentists on panoramic radiographs by measuring various mandibular indices. This study was undertaken to assess the reliability of the panoramic based mandibular indices in assessing low bone mineral densities. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 43 postmenopausal women aged 45 years and above. Orthopantomogram (OPG) and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans were performed for all the patients. Mental index (MI), gonial index (GI), antegonial index (AI), panoramic mandibular index (PMI), and mandibular cortical index (MCI) were measured and compared with the T-scores obtained from the DEXA scan. Results: The study showed that, MCI was reliable in identifying postmenopausal women with low bone mineral density (BMD) (P = 0.01). Conclusion: MCI had high diagnostic accuracy (93%) in identifying postmenopausal women with low BMDs.

Keywords

• Bone mineral density
• osteopenia
• osteoporosis
• panoramic radiographs
• postmenopausal women
• radiomorphometric indices