Abstract
In the last decade, the availability of innovative algorithms derived from complexity theory has inspired the development of highly detailed models in various fields, including physics, biology, ecology, economy, and medicine. Due to the availability of novel and ever more sophisticated diagnostic procedures, all biomedical disciplines face the problem of using the increasing amount of information concerning each patient to improve diagnosis and prevention. In particular, in the discipline of orthodontics the current diagnostic approach based on clinical and radiographic data is problematic due to the complexity of craniofacial features and to the numerous interacting co-dependent skeletal and dentoalveolar components. In this study, we demonstrate the capability of computational methods such as network analysis and module detection to extract organizing principles in 70 patients with excessive mandibular skeletal protrusion with underbite, a condition known in orthodontics as Class III malocclusion. Our results could possibly constitute a template framework for organising the increasing amount of medical data available for patients’ diagnosis.
Highlights
In the daily life of the practising orthodontist, establishing a diagnosis of malocclusion can encounter a series of troublesome procedural difficulties
A group of 70 Class III patients (Caucasian ancestry, 7–13 years of age; mean 9.5 years; 40 females and 30 males) from the Graduate Orthodontic Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and from the Department of Orthodontics, University of Florence, Italy, were analyzed before orthopedic treatment (T1) with rapid maxillary expansion combined with a facial mask (RME/FM)
It is likely that in the near future these large-scale, high–dimensional datasets can be integrated by a remarkable diverse framework. This ‘organized complexity’ is worth addressing when orthodontists are forced to make therapeutic choices under conditions of uncertainty, when they realize that corrective appliances will stimulate the algorithms of the living orthodontic world, discovering causality beyond therapeutic objective, unexpected consequences that seem to contradict any reasonable clinical scenario
Summary
In the daily life of the practising orthodontist, establishing a diagnosis of malocclusion can encounter a series of troublesome procedural difficulties. The system is put ‘out of balance’ repeatedly; changing the matrix of the growing topology of the craniofacial region is no simple task. Treatment forces the systems stationary state to confront the problematic coexistence of anatomical parts, selective forces, cumulative trauma, adaptability, robustness, opposition dynamics, competition between tooth elements for space, local optimization, and mutual attraction of forms. None of these factors can be explained fully by the laws of biomechanics [4,5,6,7,8]
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