Utility of Transfacial Dental Ultrasonography in Evaluation of Cystic Jaw Lesions.

Abstract

Plain radiography has been widely used in dentistry. Because of the variability of the quality of equipment, radiographic technique, accuracy of interpretation, and radiation risk to the patients, the field is ripe for the introduction of other newer diagnostic modalities. In this report, we demonstrate the utility of ultrasonography in the diagnostic workup of cystic or cystlike lesions of the jaw. We used a transfacial ultrasonographic scanning approach to examine 32 patients with clinical or radiographic presentation of a jaw cyst. Computed tomography and histopathologic analysis were used as the reference standards to confirm the findings. Ultrasonography could establish the presence or absence of a lesion, erosion of the buccal cortical plate, and identification of associated soft tissue involvement in all cases (sensitivity and specificity, 100% and 100%, respectively; area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 1.0; P < .001). Our observations revealed the usefulness of ultrasonography and demonstrated its potential value when introduced as a routine office-based imaging method for dentistry.