A Preliminary Study On Analysing Mandible Microarchitectural Of Osteoporosis Patients Using Computer Fractal Analysis

Objective:To investigate the Fractal Dimension(FD) changes of osteoporotic and osteopenia patients,in order to find a way to diagnosis osteoporosis patient in an early stage.Methods:Our study included45female osteoporotic patients(group A,n=45),27female osteopenia patients(group B,N=27),and control group(group C n=52).Standard digital panoramic tomography was taken for each patient. We analysed these pictures with a special software based on ImageJ.Lumbar BMD of group A and group B were measured with dual energy X-ray absorptionmetry (DXA).Difference in Fractal Dimension(FD). was found between group A(mean=1.37, SD=0.044, n=45) and group B (mean=1.33, SD=0.049, n=27)(p<0.05), also between group B and group C(mean=1.20, SD=0.46, N=52)(p<0.05). However, we can’t find a good relation between BMD and FD (|r|<0.3). Fisher linear discriminant shows that we can diagnose osteoporosis and osteopenia well with FD: in control group, most patients’FD in ROI lesser then1.28;in osteopenia group,most patients’FD in ROI lesser thenl.35,and grater then1.25; in. in osteoporosis group,most patients’FD will greater then1.35.Conclusions:In general, Fractal Dimension decreases with the increase of BMD.We can well diagnose osteoporosis and osteopenia with FD in ROI.