Accuracy of automated forensic dental age estimation lab (F-DentEst Lab) on large Malaysian dataset

Abstract

When a disaster occurs, the authority must prioritise two things. First, the search and rescue of lives, and second, the identification and management of deceased individuals. However, with thousands of dead bodies to be individually identified in mass disasters, forensic teams face challenges such as long working hours resulting in a delayed identification process and a public health concern caused by the decomposition of the body. Using dental panoramic imaging, teeth have been used in forensics as a physical marker to estimate the age of an individual. Traditionally, dental age estimation has been performed manually by experts. Although the procedure is fairly simple, the large number of victims and the limited amount of time available to complete the assessment during large-scale disasters make forensic work even more challenging. The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in the fields of medicine and dentistry has led to the suggestion of automating the current process as an alternative to the conventional method. This study aims to test the accuracy and performance of the developed deep convolutional neural network system for age estimation in large, out-of-sample Malaysian children dataset using digital dental panoramic imaging. Forensic Dental Estimation Lab (F-DentEst Lab) is a computer application developed to perform the dental age estimation digitally. The introduction of this system is to improve the conventional method of age estimation that significantly increase the efficiency of the age estimation process based on the AI approach. A total number of one-thousand-eight-hundred-and-ninety-two digital dental panoramic images were retrospectively collected to test the F-DentEst Lab. Data training, validation, and testing have been conducted in the early stage of the development of F-DentEst Lab, where the allocation involved 80 % training and the remaining 20 % for testing. The methodology was comprised of four major steps: image preprocessing, which adheres to the inclusion criteria for panoramic dental imaging, segmentation, and classification of mandibular premolars using the Dynamic Programming-Active Contour (DP-AC) method and Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN), respectively, and statistical analysis. The suggested DCNN approach underestimated chronological age with a small ME of 0.03 and 0.05 for females and males, respectively.