Prediction of periodontal bone height from partial radiographic examination

The object of the present study was to determine the relationship between the periodontal bone height as determined from the total dentition and that predicted from a limited number of teeth. The material comprised 247 subjects aged 21-60 yr with an average of 26.3 remaining teeth. All patients were radiographically examined by an intra-oral full mouth survey. The bone height was measured for each tooth and a mean of all single tooth specific values was calculated for each subject. The relationship between the measured value and the predicted value was expressed in terms of correlation coefficients. The correlation between the measured value and the predicted value improved with increasing number of teeth included in the predictor. It ranged from r = 0.79 (single tooth) to r = 0.98 (four teeth). It was concluded that the number of radiographs exposed and teeth examined can be considerably reduced when estimating the alveolar bone height for periodontal screening.