Detecting osteoporosis using dental radiographs: a comparison of four methods.

The authors evaluated dental radiographs for signs of osteoporosis using four methods: fractal dimension, microdensitometry, pixel intensity and panoramic analysis of cortical thickness. The efficacy of these methods also was compared against three standard bone density measurement techniques used to diagnose osteoporosis in bones other than the jaws: quantitative computed tomography and single- and dual-photon absorptiometry. Pixel intensity was significantly more effective than the other dental methods at distinguishing between radiographs from the osteoporotic group and the control group, although fractal dimension and microdensitometry methods also were effective.