Using Networks To Understand Medical Data: The Case of Class III Malocclusions

Abstract

A system of elements that interact or regulate each other can be represented by a mathematical object called a network. While network analysis has been successfully applied to high-throughput biological systems, less has been done regarding their application in more applied fields of medicine; here we show an application based on standard medical diagnostic data. We apply network analysis to Class III malocclusion, one of the most difficult to understand and treat orofacial anomaly. We hypothesize that different interactions of the skeletal components can contribute to pathological disequilibrium; in order to test this hypothesis, we apply network analysis to 532 Class III young female patients. The topology of the Class III malocclusion obtained by network analysis shows a strong co-occurrence of abnormal skeletal features. The pattern of these occurrences influences the vertical and horizontal balance of disharmony in skeletal form and position. Patients with more unbalanced orthodontic phenotypes show preponderance of the pathological skeletal nodes and minor relevance of adaptive dentoalveolar equilibrating nodes. Furthermore, by applying Power Graphs analysis we identify some functional modules among orthodontic nodes. These modules correspond to groups of tightly inter-related features and presumably constitute the key regulators of plasticity and the sites of unbalance of the growing dentofacial Class III system. The data of the present study show that, in their most basic abstraction level, the orofacial characteristics can be represented as graphs using nodes to represent orthodontic characteristics, and edges to represent their various types of interactions. The applications of this mathematical model could improve the interpretation of the quantitative, patient-specific information, and help to better targeting therapy. Last but not least, the methodology we have applied in analyzing orthodontic features can be applied easily to other fields of the medical science.

Consequences of orthodontic treatment in malocclusion patients: clinical and microbial effects in adults and children

“…Malocclusion is defined as a misalignment of the teeth or an incorrect occlusion between the upper and lower dental arches [3]. Malocclusion has a significant effect on craniofacial development, oral health and function, as well as the patients’ appearance, and more serious to induce harm to systemic health of patients.…”

Complex networks for data-driven medicine: the case of Class III dentoskeletal disharmony

“…Recently, different algorithmic approaches derived from complexity theory showed that malocclusions can be viewed as polytypic structures consisting of a systematic mixture of multiple, competing dentofacial types whose growth trajectories depend on the membership grade of a specific growth strategy [31,32]. How these large-scale, high-dimensional data sets can be integrated to better understand the orthodontic network underlying physiological states associated with malocclusions needs to be understood.…”

“…How these large-scale, high-dimensional data sets can be integrated to better understand the orthodontic network underlying physiological states associated with malocclusions needs to be understood. By integrating multiple orthodontic components and regulatory interactions into a comprehensive topological model that goes beyond clinical intuition, emerging mathematical tools such as complex networks and modules' detection could address a variety of biological problems in orthodontics and allow improved interpretation of quantitative patient-specific information [31]. In this study, we applied these promising approaches to the orthodontics with the aim to extract information, infer the craniofacial evolutionary morphogenesis on a topological basis, and obtain a more comprehensive understanding of processes associated with treatment of Class III malocclusion.…”

Complex, inter-networked economic and social systems

“…Although only one out of four of the examples of the paper were truly power-law networks [5], the mechanism introduced in [4] opened a very prolific era of investigations [6]. Since then, complex networks have become a common language in the interdisciplinary fields [7]; the research has evolved toward several directions, from the most esoteric quantum networks [8], to the more applied field of Network Medicine [9][10][11][12][13], to the recent field of Networks of Networks [14] stimulated by the need of describing interdependent systems [15] -and many more.Nowadays, among the most successful field of application of complex networks are economics and finance; surprisingly, complex networks have revealed much less effective in their original field of birth -social systems.In this issue, we have collected research papers on several topical trends in complex economic, financial and social systems. It is interesting that a consistent fraction of these papers does not need to apply complex networks but resort to much more a…”

“…Although only one out of four of the examples of the paper were truly power-law networks [5], the mechanism introduced in [4] opened a very prolific era of investigations [6]. Since then, complex networks have become a common language in the interdisciplinary fields [7]; the research has evolved toward several directions, from the most esoteric quantum networks [8], to the more applied field of Network Medicine [9][10][11][12][13], to the recent field of Networks of Networks [14] stimulated by the need of describing interdependent systems [15] -and many more.…”