Recently, wavelet transform has proven to be very effective in medical image compression. However, the choice of wavelet filters is a vital factor that can be determined the compression performance. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of applying different types of wavelet filters belonging to orthogonal and biorthogonal wavelets with different orders on the panoramic dental x-ray images. The wavelet filters used are Haar, Daubichies8, 6/10, 9/7 and 5/3 filters. The performance evaluation of the image quality is measured objectively using peak signal to noise ratio and blocking artifact measurement. The almost simulated results reveal that 9/7 irreversible wavelet transform is the best choice for lossy panoramic dental x-ray image compression.