Recent artificial intelligence (AI) models have shown to accurately identify dental diseases from dental panoramic radiography (DPR) images, suggesting they may improve diagnosis and patient outcomes. This review was published on June 21 in Evidence-Based Dentistry.
Although there have been multiple studies on the use of AI in analyzing dental panoramic radiography images, technology is always evolving. Therefore, this systematic review was conducted to establish the current state of knowledge on the suitability of AI in dental radiography analysis, Dave wrote.
AI detected caries and periodontal bone loss, and identified and numbered teeth with high accuracy, and other conditions with high sensitivity and specificity, wrote author, Dr. Manas Dave, of the University of Manchester School of Medical Sciences in the U.K.
“[The] results indicate that AI applications can significantly support dentists,” Dave wrote.
For this systematic review, 12 studies that compared AI-based diagnoses from panoramic radiography to human diagnoses were included.
The analysis revealed that AI models were highly accurate in detecting periodontal bone loss (93%), teeth identification and numbering (93.6%), caries (91.5%), and maxillary sinusitis (87.5%). Furthermore, AI detected periapical lesions with high sensitivity (99.9%) and specificity (92%), Dave wrote.
However, the study had limitations. Some reviews can quickly become outdated due to rapid advancements in AI, the author wrote.
“This review shows how AI is integrating into dentistry and possible tools that may become available in the future,” Dave concluded.
