Tooth Position Determination by Automatic Cutting and Marking of Dental Panoramic X-ray Film in Medical Image Processing

Yen-Cheng Huang,Chun-Wei Li,Wei-Yuan Chiang,Jia-Jun Yuan,Yi-Cheng Mao,Chiung-An Chen,Shih-Lun Chen,Tsung-Yi Chen,Wei-Chi Lin,Wen-Shen Lo,Tzu-Chien Li,He-Sheng Chou,Szu-Yin Lin,Patricia Angela R Abu

doi:10.3390/app112411904

Abstract

This paper presents a novel method for automatic segmentation of dental X-ray images into single tooth sections and for placing every segmented tooth onto a precise corresponding position table. Moreover, the proposed method automatically determines the tooth’s position in a panoramic X-ray film. The image-processing step incorporates a variety of image-enhancement techniques, including sharpening, histogram equalization, and flat-field correction. Moreover, image processing was implemented iteratively to achieve higher pixel value contrast between the teeth and cavity. The next image-enhancement step is aimed at detecting the teeth cavity and involves determining the segment and points separating the upper and lower jaw, using the difference in pixel values to cut the image into several equal sections and then connecting each cavity feature point to extend a curve that completes the description of the separated jaw. The curve is shifted up and down to look for the gap between the teeth, to identify and address missing teeth and overlapping. Under FDI World Dental Federation notation, the left and right sides receive eight-code sequences to mark each tooth, which provides improved convenience in clinical use. According to the literature, X-ray film cannot be marked correctly when a tooth is missing. This paper utilizes artificial center positioning and sets the teeth gap feature points to have the same count. Then, the gap feature points are connected as a curve with the curve of the jaw to illustrate the dental segmentation. In addition, we incorporate different image-processing methods to sequentially strengthen the X-ray film. The proposed procedure had an 89.95% accuracy rate for tooth positioning. As for the tooth cutting, where the edge of the cutting box is used to determine the position of each tooth number, the accuracy of the tooth positioning method in this proposed study is 92.78%.

Highlights

Image-identification technology has been applied in various contexts, such as customs administration for enforcing the fiscal integrity and security of goods moving across land and sea borders proposed by Visser et al [1]
Before any radiography characteristics are recorded, determining tooth positions is of the utmost importance
Determining tooth positions will always be the first task for dentists when interpreting panoramic radiography

Summary

Introduction

Image-identification technology has been applied in various contexts, such as customs administration for enforcing the fiscal integrity and security of goods moving across land and sea borders proposed by Visser et al [1]. Due to the extensive development of artificial intelligence, breakthroughs have been achieved in various fields of medicine [2,3]. Dentists can apply this technology as a supplementary tool to assist with interpreting dental images and making documentation automatically, which can save valuable clinical time and make dental practice more efficient [4,5]. Before any radiography characteristics are recorded, determining tooth positions is of the utmost importance. Determining tooth positions will always be the first task for dentists when interpreting panoramic radiography

Methods

Results

Conclusion