Possibilities of Automated Diagnostics of Odontogenic Sinusitis According to the Computer Tomography Data

Abstract

Individual anatomical features of the paranasal sinuses and dentoalveolar system, the complexity of physiological and pathophysiological processes in this area, and the absence of actual standards of the norm and typical pathologies lead to the fact that differential diagnosis and assessment of the severity of the course of odontogenic sinusitis significantly depend on the measurement methods of significant indicators and have significant variability. Therefore, an urgent task is to expand the diagnostic capabilities of existing research methods, study the significance of the measured indicators, and substantiate the expediency of their use in the diagnosis of specific pathologies in an automated mode. Methods of digital filtering, image segmentation and analysis, fluid dynamics, and statistical and discriminant analysis were used. Preliminary differential diagnosis of odontogenic sinusitis can be performed by densitemetric analysis of tomographic images of the maxillary sinuses, performed using frontal multiplanar reconstructions according to a given algorithm. The very manifestation of the characteristic changes in the densitography of the maxillary sinus allows for the initiation of certain pathological processes and permits the development of the effectiveness of the diagnosis of the pathology of the sinus sinuses, which can be realized automatically in real life.

Research Active Posterior Rhinomanometry Tomography Method for Nasal Breathing Determining Violations

“…Currently, the most modern quantitative method for assessing the function of nasal breathing is rhinomanometry-a method in which measurements of the pressure drop in the nasal cavity and the corresponding flow of air passing through the nose [9,19,31,[42][43][44]. The method of computer rhinomanometry generally accepted in the last two decades [9,19,[42][43][44] allows for estimating the size of disturbance of nasal breath by definition of an indicator of aerodynamic nasal resistance in the form of a ratio of pressure difference in a nasal cavity to value of air flow volume.…”

“…The method by which it is possible to study the configuration of the structures of the nasal cavity quite comprehensively is X-ray computed tomography [12][13][14]31,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. The method allows for visualizing both bone structures and soft tissues and to segment the airways [7,12,31] by digital tomographic image processing [31,[49][50][51][52].…”

“…The method by which it is possible to study the configuration of the structures of the nasal cavity quite comprehensively is X-ray computed tomography [12][13][14]31,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. The method allows for visualizing both bone structures and soft tissues and to segment the airways [7,12,31] by digital tomographic image processing [31,[49][50][51][52]. In addition, CFD models, which are based on computed tomography data, allow to study the aerodynamic characteristics of the upper respiratory tract [7,10,13,23,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60].…”

“…The initial data for the conducted research are sets of images of tomographic sections.. The images are stored in DICOM format [12,31,[46][47][48][49][50], converted using the standard utility DICOM_IMAGE in raster format BMP (Windows bitmap) with a size of 512 × 512 (x × y) and eight-bit representation of intensity levels (after window-range for soft tissue preprocessing). Preliminary processing of tomographic images was performed by the method of median filtration [12,31,49,50] to eliminate possible interference in the form of pulsed noise.…”

“…The results of studying the characteristics of the air flow in the nasal cavity, as well as the effect of the boundary layer on the mucous membrane of the nasal cavity, are the basic data for endoscopic surgery of the nasal sinuses [20,21]; planning of functional, minimally invasive surgical interventions [12,22,23], in particular septoplasty [22][23][24]; and functional−aesthetic rhinoplasty [25][26][27][28]. The influence of anatomical structures and changes in the architectonics of the nose on nasal aerodynamics [29][30][31][32][33][34][35] can be seen, in particular, in the syndrome of empty nose [30], odontogenic sinusitis [31], the shape of the nasal valve [32] and in sleep apnea syndrome [33][34][35], and the study of the characteristics of the air flow is carried out on full-scale models of the nasal cavity [36,37]. Moreover, studies of the olfactory function are relevant [38][39][40][41], especially in the diagnosis and subsequent rehabilitation of patients after COVID-19 [40].…”