The measurement of mandibular cortical bone height in osteoporotic vs. non-osteoporotic postmenopausal women.

The asymptomatic progression of osteoporosis, in conjunction with the possibility of catastrophic disability, makes this disorder a major public health priority. Various body sites, including the mandible, have shown susceptibility to decreasing bone density. In 1986, Benson et al. proposed a radiomorphometric technique called the Panoramic Mandibular Index (PMI) as an inexpensive noninvasive dental technique for osteoporosis screening, although no osteoporotic subjects were included in their study. The purpose of our study was to determine whether osteoporotic postmenopausal women would show a decrease in mandibular cortical bone height, as measured by the PMI index, when compared with nonosteoporotic postmenopausal women. Seventy-two Caucasian females (33 cases/39 controls), aged 54-71 years old, were selected through records and screening via a dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry scan (LUNAR-DEXA). ANOVA analysis indicated no differences in the mean PMI between case and control groups (0.37 +/- 0.15 and 0.38 +/- 0.13, respectively; p = 0.69). Other techniques, such as computer digitized radiography should be explored to test the validity of the PMI.