Background and Aims: Idiopathic osteosclerosis is an asymptomatic local growth of cortical bone and is discovered incidentally on panoramic radiographs. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the frequency of idiopathic osteosclerosis and its radiographic features in panoramic images of patients referred to the Department of Maxillofacial Radiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Arak University of Medical Sciences (Iran) in 2022-2023.
Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 460 panoramic images from the radiology department of Arak Faculty of Dentistry were randomly selected and analyzed. The demographic information of patients, frequency of idiopathic osteosclerosis, location, and also its relationship with adjacent teeth in terms of proximity to lamina dura and periodontal ligament and radiographic features in terms of size and morphology were evaluated. The data were analyzed using the SPSS24 software.
Results: Panoramic images of 460 patients (266 men and 194 women) with an average age of 38.12 (11.75) years were evaluated. The frequency of idiopathic osteosclerosis was 6.1% (28 images). 92.9% of the lesions were in the lower jaw and 46.4% of them were near the premolar teeth. In 39.3% of the cases, the lesion was adjacent to the periodontal ligament and laminadora of the tooth. In 3.6% of the cases, it was associated with a small displacement of the adjacent tooth, and 17.9% was associated with tooth root resorption. According to the results, there was no correlation between the incidence of this lesion with age and gender (P>0.05).
Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, the frequency of idiopathic osteosclerosis in the patients referred to Arak dental school was reported as 6.1%. Most of these lesions were observed in the back of the lower jaw and thus, it is important to be able to distinguish this lesion from the radiopaque lesions of the jaw which need treatment.
