Changes in the Amount of Bone in the Mandibular Bone with Age

Bone Morphometric Evaluation Using Reconstruction Images by DentaScan^®

Abstract

Reconstruction images by DentaScan^® to evaluate the jaw bone, which are used for the preoperative examination of dental implantation, show highly accurate information regarding the thickness of the cortical bone in the whole circumference of the mandibular bone, the height and width of the jaw bone, and the course of the inferior alveolar nerve. In this study, to investigate the influence of age and gender in the thickness of the cortical bone and the size of the medullary cavity in the mandibular bone were bone morphometrically analyzed using reconstruction images.
The subjects were 39 patients (50 sides) aged between 40 and 70 years, in whom the teeth posterior to the mandibular second premolar were absent, among patients in whom evaluation of the mandibular bone was performed as the preoperative examination of implantation using panoramic radiography and DentaScan^®. In this study, using slice images of the area 2 cm posterior to the mental foramen, the thickness of the mandibular cortical bone and the width of the medullary cavity were measured, and the changes in the values with age and gender were analyzed. Furthermore, the results were compared with those of the evaluation of bone amount by the conventional panoramic radiography.
As a result, the panoramic radiographical morphometry could not detect the changes in the bone amount in the mandibular bone. However, analysis using reconstruction images by DentaScan^® revealed that the thickness of the cortical bone in the inferior border, and on the central and inferior buccal sides of the female mandibular bone decreased with age. Furthermore, it was speculated that the medullary cavity in the female mandibular bone enlarged with age, by the resorption of the inner surface of the cortical bone.