Automated osteoporosis risk assessment by dentists: A new pathway to diagnosis

Oral Health and Bone Density in Adolescents and Young Women with Anorexia Nervosa

“…Our choice of outcomes was based in part upon studies in the literature that identified the anterior region of the mandible, considering regions obtained on dental radiographs, as a favorable site for BMD detection. [20][21][22] One study found that the cortical index for diagnosing osteoporosis was noted to have both low sensitivity and specificity. 23 Use of MCW measurements, in lieu of mandibular cortical porosity in the mental foramen region, was influenced by the recent release of findings from the OSTEODENT project.…”

The role of the dental surgeon in detecting osteoporosis: the OSTEODENT study

“…Hip frac tures, in particular, are associated with significant mortality and morbidity in the elderly, 1 but in one study, less than one fifth (18%) of high risk peo ple had received medical treatment for osteoporosis before the occurrence of hip fracture. 2 The current failure to assess and treat patients at high risk of osteoporosis may be partly due to 1* School of Dentistry, University of Manchester; 2,3,7,8 Im aging Science and Biomedical Engineering, University of Manchester; 4 Oral Imaging Centre, Katholieke Uni versiteit, Belgium; 5 Oral Diagnosis and Radiology, Den tal School of Athens; 6 Faculty of Odontology, Malmo University, Sweden; 9,11 School of Dentistry, University of Manchester; 10 insufficient resources or time, but a failure of health professionals to iden tify risk factors and refer the patient for defi nitive diagnosis using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is an important contributory factor.…”

“…Recently, we reported the use of mandibular cortical width measure ments on dental panoramic radiographs (DPRs) as an alternative method of iden tifying patients with osteoporosis. 6,7 The underlying rationale for this is the enormous number of DPRs taken in den tal practice. We propose a strategy of the dentist referring individuals with a thin mandibular cortex and other clini cal risk factors for further DXA inves tigation.…”

Diagnosis of osteoporosis in dental patients

“…However, these problems could be surpassed, as suggested by literature 43,44 , by using automated digital radiological software programs, which reduce the dentist's participation and produce highly repetitive results compared to the analog x-ray method 45 . Furthermore, special training of dental practitioners is advisable, concerning screening of osteoporosis in dental patients, as well as their further familiarization with digital x-ray practice.…”