Quantitative assessment of age-related changes in the mandibular bone marrow using apparent coefficient value

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the age-related changes in apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values of the mandibular bone marrow using diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). Materials and methods: This retrospective cohort study comprised all patients who underwent pantomography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) between April 2018 and November 2020 at our institution. A total of 351 participants (140 men, 211 women), aged 15–89 years (mean age 46.01 years), were included in the study. Spearman’s correlation coefficients were calculated using age groups as the criterion variable and the ADC values as the explanatory variables. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The mean ADC value for all age groups was 0.91 ± 0.18 in men and 0.86 ± 0.16 in women (p = 0.016). There was a significant negative correlation between age and the ADC values in each sex group (p < 0.001). Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the normal ADC values of the mandibular bone marrow show significant negative correlation with increasing age. These findings will be useful in the diagnosis of bone marrow diseases.