DETECTING OSTEOPOROSIS FROM DENTAL RADIOGRAPHS USING ACTIVE SHAPE MODELS

We describe a novel method of estimating reduced bone mineral density (BMD) from dental panoramic tomograms (DPTs) which show the entire mandible. Careful expert width measurement of the inferior mandibular cortex has been shown to be predictive of BMD in hip and spine osteopenia and osteoporosis. We have implemented a method of automatic measurement of the width by active shape model search, using as training data 132 DPTs of female subjects and tested on a test data set of 606 DPTs of female subjects whose BMD has been established by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. We demonstrate that the sensitivity of the automatic method to osteoporosis is equivalent to that of expert manual measurement.