A radiographic survey of periapical jawbone lesions.

A radiographic survey of the jawbone adjacent to the teeth revealed a high incidence of bone pathosis in 889 randomly chosen patients. Jaw lesions, nearly all inflammatory, were present in every second person. Bone-destructive inflammatory processes (rarefying osteitis) were the most frequently encountered lesions, occurring in both the maxilla and the mandible. Bone-appositioning inflammatory processes (condensing osteitis), on the other hand, appeared mostly in the mandible, very often involving the first molar, thus indicating the differing biologic behavior of the two jawbones. Other bony manifestations in the mandible, such as enostosis and periapical cemental dysplasia, although relatively rare, also formed part of the picture. In light of the absence of related symptoms, the clinical significance of these widely prevalent periapical lesions has to be reconsidered.