title: Osteoporosis prediction from the mandible using cone-beam computed tomography.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to evaluate the use of dental cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) in the diagnosis of osteoporosis among menopausal and postmenopausal women by using only a CBCT viewer program.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty-eight menopausal and postmenopausal women who underwent dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) examination for hip and lumbar vertebrae were scanned using CBCT (field of view: 13 cm×15 cm; voxel size: 0.25 mm). Slices from the body of the mandible as well as the ramus were selected and some CBCT-derived variables, such as radiographic density (RD) as gray values, were calculated as gray values. Pearson's correlation, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and accuracy (sensitivity and specificity) evaluation based on linear and logistic regression were performed to choose the variable that best correlated with the lumbar and femoral neck T-scores.
  
  
  RESULTS
  RD of the whole bone area of the mandible was the variable that best correlated with and predicted both the femoral neck and the lumbar vertebrae T-scores; further, Pearson's correlation coefficients were 0.5/0.6 (p value=0.037/0.009). The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy based on the logistic regression were 50%, 88.9%, and 78.4%, respectively, for the femoral neck, and 46.2%, 91.3%, and 75%, respectively, for the lumbar vertebrae.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Lumbar vertebrae and femoral neck osteoporosis can be predicted with high accuracy from the RD value of the body of the mandible by using a CBCT viewer program.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Medicine, Faculty of Dentistry, Damascus University, Damascus, Syria.
authors.forename: Imad
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Barngkgei
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Medicine, Faculty of Dentistry, Damascus University, Damascus, Syria.
authors.forename: Iyad
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Al Haffar
authors.affiliation: Department of Periodontology, Faculty of Dentistry, Damascus University, Damascus, Syria.
authors.forename: Razan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Khattab
keywords: Bone Density; Cone-Beam Computed Tomography; DXA Scan; Osteoporosis