A new screening pathway for identifying asymptomatic patients using dental panoramic radiographs

ABSTRACT To identify asymptomatic patients is the challenging task and the essential first step in diagnosis. Findings of dental panoramic radiographs include not only dental conditions but also radiographic signs that are suggestive of possible systemic diseases such as osteoporosis, arteriosclerosis, and maxillary sinusitis. Detection of such signs on panoramic radiographs has a potential to provide supplemental benefits for patients. However, it is not easy for general dental practitioners to pay careful attention to such signs. We addressed the development of a computer-aided detection (CAD) system that detects radiographic signs of pathology on panoramic images, and the design of the framework of new screening pathway by cooperation of dentists and our CAD system. The performance evaluation of our CAD system showed the sensitivity and specificity in the identification of osteoporotic patients were 92.6 % and 100 %, respectively, and those of the maxillary sinus abnormality were 89.6 % and 73.6 %, respectively. The detection rate of carotid artery calcifications that suggests the need for further medical evaluation was approximately 93.6 % with 4.4 false-positives per image. To validate the utility of the new screen ing pathway, preliminary clinical trials by using our CAD system were conducted. To date, 223 panoramic images were processed and 4 asymptomatic patients with suspected osteoporosis, 7 asymptomatic patients with suspected calcifications, and 40 asymptomatic patients with suspected maxillary sinusitis were detected in our initial trial. It was suggested that our new screening pathway could be useful to identify asymptomatic patients with systemic diseases. Keywords: Dental panoramic radiography, Computer-aided detection system, Osteoporosis, Carotid artery calcifications, Maxillary sinusitis, New screening pathway