Correlation between the Bone Densities Jaws and Cervical Spine through the HU Scale Measured in Multislice Computed Tomography: Opportunistic Screening for Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a skeletal disease characterized by low bone mass, deterioration of the bone structure and an increased risk of fracture that also affects the bones of the jaws. Causes an increase in porosity that reflects the integration of quality and bone mineral density, hindering rehabilitation treatment with implants. Cervical osteoporosis affects the spinal vertebrae bones of the neck in particular the vertebrae bodies which form the spinal column. Your cervical vertebrae surround the spinal cord to protect it from damage. Cervical osteoporosis is a silent and gradual condition that emits no symptoms. The gold standard diagnostic tool is bone densitometry by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), but the computed tomography (CT) also proves very effective in assessing bone quality through Hounsfield unit (HU). In this study, we evaluated the bone density of mandibular heads, regions of the teeth 13, 23, 36 and 46 and cervical vertebrae C1, C2 and C3, through Hounsfield scale CT scans, and correlated their values for diagnosis for possible evaluation of osteoporosis. We evaluated multi-slice CTs of patients who underwent both examinations of the maxilla and mandible. We use software to analyze and Efilm-investigated regions. The results show that the bone densities of the cervical spine (C1 and C3) were positively correlated with the mandibular heads (r = 0.2246, Pearson correlation coefficient), posterior region of the mandible (r = 0.2348,) and correlation with the anterior region of the maxilla (r = 0.40). Therefore we can conclude that there is a positive correlation between the cervical vertebrae and buccal sites, but this correlation is weak. Being that we found a moderate correlation of the cervical vertebrae with the anterior region of the maxilla was finded.

Keywords: Osteoporosis, Computed tomography (CT), Hounsfield unit (HU), Bone mineral density (BMD).