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.