A clinical pilot study of jawbone mineral density measured by the newly developed dual-energy cone-beam computed tomography method compared to calibrated multislice computed tomography

Purpose: This clinical pilot study was performed to determine the effectiveness of dual-energy cone-beam computed tomography (DE-CBCT) in measuring bone mineral density (BMD). Materials and Methods: The BMD values obtained using DE-CBCT were compared to those obtained using calibrated multislice computed tomography (MSCT). After BMD calibration with specially designed phantoms, both DE-CBCT and MSCT scanning were performed in 15 adult dental patients. Three-dimensional (3D) Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine data were imported into a dental software program, and the defined regions of interest (ROIs) on the 3-dimensional surface-rendered images were identified. The automatically-measured BMD values of the ROIs (g/cm(3)), the differences in the measured BMD values of the matched ROIs obtained by DE-CBCT and MSCT 3D images, and the correlation between the BMD values obtained by the 2 devices were statistically analyzed. Results: The mean BMD values of the ROIs for the 15 patients as assessed using DE-CBCT and MSCT were 1.09 +/- 0.07 g/cm(3) and 1.13 +/- 0.08 g/cm(3), respectively. The mean of the differences between the BMD values of the matched ROIs as assessed using DE-CBCT and calibrated MSCT images was 0.04 +/- 0.02 g/cm(3). The Pearson correlation coefficient between the BMD values of DE-CBCT and MSCT images was 0.982 (r = 0.982, P<0.001). Conclusion: The newly developed DE-CBCT technique could be used to measure jaw BMD in dentistry and may soon replace MSCT, which is expensive and requires special facilities.