Towards AR‐assisted visualisation and guidance for imaging of dental decay

Abstract

Untreated dental decay is the most prevalent dental problem in the world, affecting up to 2.4 billion people and leading to a significant economic and social burden. Early detection can greatly mitigate irreversible effects of dental decay, avoiding the need for expensive restorative treatment that forever disrupts the enamel protective layer of teeth. However, two key challenges exist that make early decay management difficult: unreliable detection and lack of quantitative monitoring during treatment. New optically based imaging through the enamel provides the dentist a safe means to detect, locate, and monitor the healing process. This work explores the use of an augmented reality (AR) headset to improve the workflow of early decay therapy and monitoring. The proposed workflow includes two novel ARenabled features: (i) in situ visualisation of pre-operative optically based dental images and (ii) augmented guidance for repetitive imaging during therapy monitoring. The workflow is designed to minimise distraction, mitigate hand-eye coordination problems, and help guide monitoring of early decay during therapy in both clinical and mobile environments. The results from quantitative evaluations as well as a formative qualitative user study uncover the potentials of the proposed system and indicate that AR can serve as a promising tool in tooth decay management.

Augmented Reality in Dentistry: Uses and Applications in the Digital Era

“…Zhou Y. et al [14]. published a study in 2019, also proposed the use of an HMD with a low-cost 2D imaging modality like SFE in the early detection of dental caries [17]. Such simple AR systems could enable the usage of AR in routine dental clinical practice in the future [14,17].…”

“…Multiple researchers have proved the effectiveness of the AR simulators in assisting dentists by showing and displaying virtual models in the operating field. This directly contributed to the reduction in the difficulty of hand-eye coordination [17].…”

“…AR has already been introduced in the dental research, incorporating the dental implant, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthodontic, endodontic, prosthodontics, paedodontics, operative dentistry, as well as dental education [1,[4][5][6][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. The reason why this study aims to acknowledge the latest technological development related to augmented reality uses and applications in the dental field, also its future, and how can it be improved.…”

Visualization, registration and tracking techniques for augmented reality guided surgery: a review

“…Several studies have integrated a variety of AR visualizations. An AR-assisted visualization workflow including two in situ visualization features of a preoperative dental 3D image and repetitive 2D imaging during therapy monitoring was proposed (Zhou et al 2019a). After the image fusion of the 2D images and the 3D image, the condition of decays was able to be inspected by interpreting and comparing images from multiple modalities.…”

Biologically inspired intraoral camera for multifunctional dental imaging

“…26,27 For instance, the intraoral scanners often provide the anterior and posterior teeth arrangement as well as the position of the dental cavity. 28,29 Dentists require teeth images from various angles such as right/left buccal and maxillary/mandibular occlusal for accurate diagnosis of teeth. 30,31 However, previously developed intraoral cameras have technical bottlenecks such as large minimum object distance, thick total track length, narrow viewing angle, and the absence of functionality fusion.…”