Computer Tomography Assessment Of Alveolar Ridge Modifications In Elderly Patients

Abstract

This study aims to assessing how useful are the dental CT scans in the investigation of mandible alveolar ridge modification for diagnosis purposes and whether the jawbone density is correlated or not with the number of teeth lost. Materials and method: We analyzed 15 CT scans, made with the dental-CT software, belonging to some patients who wanted dental implants or dental treatments and to a control group formed by 10 patients who had undertaken an emergency cranial CT scan for severe head trauma, and a jawbone reconstruction using the Dental CT software. There have been performed symmetrical jawbone measurements on both the left and right sides. Results: The collected data show major differences regarding the mandible alveolar ridge height depending on the sex and age of the patient. The following have been noticed: symmetrical changes to the cortical bone density on the right-left side of the menton hole, to the cortical bone thickness around the menton hole, to the mandible cortical bone density at gonion, to the cortical bone thickness at the gonion. Conclusion: The hereby study confirms the efficiency of the dental computed tomography in the analysis of the mandible alveolar ridge and the density of mandible bone.

Keywords

• Alveolar ridge
• bone density
• Dental-CT imaging
• mandible