Advanced CT bone imaging in osteoporosis

Radiographic features of mandibular trabecular bone structure in hypodontia

PURPOSE

Radiographic parameters of mandibular trabecular bone structure between 67 subjects having hypodontia and those without were studied on digital panoramic radiographs.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Three regions of interest (ROI) were defined: the ascending ramus, apical of the mandibular molar and mesial of the first mandibular molar. The effects of the presence of hypodontia and the ROI on the mandibular trabecular bone structure were tested for statistical significance by means of multivariate analysis.

RESULTS

Radiographic parameters of trabecular bone architecture were found to differ between various regions of the mandible (p = 0.000), but not between the group of hypodontia subjects and their controls (p = 0.23). There was no interaction effect between the ROIs and the two groups (p = 0.79). For people having hypodontia, some directional parameters of trabecular bone have a reverse correlation with the number of missing teeth. The fractal dimension and the number and perimeter of white segments in the binarized image correlate positively with the number of congenitally missing teeth.

CONCLUSIONS

A limited number of parameters of radiographic mandibular trabecular bone structure correlate with the number of missing teeth. However, a markable difference in radiographic parameters of mandibular trabecular bone structure between hypodontia and non-hypodontia subjects could not be demonstrated.

Bone fragility and imaging techniques

Bone fragility is a silent condition that increases bone fracture risk, enhanced by low bone mass and microarchitecture deterioration of bone tissue that lead to osteoporosis. Fragility fractures are the major clinical manifestation of osteoporosis.A large body of epidemiological data indicates that the current standard for predicting fragility fracture risk is an areal BMD (aBMD) measurement by DXA. Although mineral density measurements assess the quantity of bone, the quality of the tissue is an important predictor of fragility. Thus, bone strength is explained not only by BMD but also by macrostructural and microstructural characteristics of bone tissue. Imaging diagnostics, through the use of X-rays, DXA, Ultrasonography, CT and MR, provides methods for diagnosis and characterization of fractures, and semi- and quantitative methods for assessment of bone consistency and strength, that become precious for bone fragility clinical management if they are integrated by clinical risk factors. The last employment of sophisticated non-invasively imaging techniques in clinical research as high-resolution CT (hrCT), microCT (μ-CT), high-resolution MR (hrMR) and, microRM (μRM), combined with finite element analysis methods, open to new challenges in a better bone strength assessment to enhance the comprehension of biomechanical parameters and the prediction of fragility fractures.