Digital panoramic radiographs are useful for diagnosis of osteoporosis in Korean postmenopausal women

Objective The purpose of this study was to determine whether digital panoramic radiographs could be used for the diagnosis of osteoporosis through evaluation of the radiographs based on the correlation with bone mineral density (BMD). Methods One hundred and ninety‐four post‐menopausal women were selected from participants who had participated in the Dong‐gu study. Panoramic radiographic indices measured are mental index (MI), mandibular cortical index (MCI) and simple visual estimation (SVE). BMD at the lumbar spine and proximal femur was measured by dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA). The Pearson's correlation test was performed to analyse the correlation between MI and age and BMD at the lumbar spine, femoral neck and total hip. Multiple linear regression analysis was performed to analyse the association of MI, MCI and SVE with BMD after adjusting for age, height and weight. To determine the optimal cut‐off point of MI for the diagnosis of osteoporosis, the receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed. Results The MI was positively correlated with BMDs: lumbar spine: r = 0.36, femoral neck: r = 0.59 and total hip: r = 0.58 (p