Early detection of acute mandibular osteomyelitis using computed tomography texture analysis

Area of Science:

• Radiology
• Medical Imaging
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Background:

• Early detection of acute suppurative osteomyelitis is clinically challenging.
• Mandibular osteomyelitis requires timely diagnosis for effective treatment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the utility of computed tomography (CT) texture analysis for diagnosing acute mandibular osteomyelitis.
• To assess the diagnostic performance of CT texture features in differentiating osteomyelitis from healthy bone.

Main Methods:

• Seventeen patients with acute mandibular osteomyelitis and 17 controls underwent CT scans.
• MaZda software extracted 279 texture features from regions of interest.
• Six significant features were selected, and their diagnostic ability was assessed using receiver operating characteristic curves.

Main Results:

• All six selected CT texture features showed significant differences between osteomyelitis and control groups (P < 0.001).
• The analysis demonstrated high diagnostic performance with sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy ranging from 0.94 to 1.0.
• The area under the curve (AUC) for detecting acute osteomyelitis was 0.96-1.0.

Conclusions:

• CT texture analysis is a potentially valuable tool for the early diagnosis of acute mandibular osteomyelitis.
• This imaging technique offers high accuracy in identifying early signs of mandibular bone infection.