Many people with osteoporosis go undiagnosed until serious problems become evident. By this time, significant bone loss has taken place and the window of opportunity for prevention is lost. However, screening everyone with expensive DEXA scans is not economically feasible.

Researchers in the School of Dentistry at the University of Manchester may have a solution to this dillema. A big part of routine dental work involves taking X-rays of the teeth and jawbones, so these researchers decided to develop an automated system for the X-rays taken by dentists to be used as a screening tool to identify people with low bone density. They developed and tested a computer software system that could automatically detect likely cases of osteoporosis by quantifying the thickness of a portion of the lower jaw.

By testing the system on over 600 women 65 years and older, they estimated that at least two out of five cases of osteoporosis would be automatically flagged by their computer software in the dentist’s office without any additional work by the dentist, other than referring the patient to get testing for osteoporosis. The system is not perfect, but it would catch many cases of osteoporosis that would otherwise go unnoticed until serious symptoms of osteoporosis became evident. Since this system could greatly reduce both patient suffering and medical costs, I hope it gets the fast track to implementation.

Source
Devlin, Hugh et al. “Automated Osteoporosis Risk Assessment by Dentists: A New Pathway to Diagnosis” Bone (In Press/Corrected Proof; available online 22 December 2006). (See article abstract)