PROFILER: A Tool for Early Radiographic Diagnosis of Dental Implant Failure

M. M. Haji^*, M. Jazayeri⁺ and A. Faraghat⁺

<sup>* Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Shiraz University
+ Faculty of Dentistry, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences</sup>

INTRODUCTION

The early diagnosis of dental implant failure besides all of its benefits is so critical. Among different methods used for evaluating the failure of dental implants, conventional radiographs are still the most common. However, using computerized and digital imaging techniques, one can obtain valuable and reliable information from conventional radiographs. In this study, we have designed and introduced a tool called PROFILER for the early diagnosis of dental implant failure, and comparing the capability of computer versus human eye in the early detection of radiolucencies around dental implants.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A FRIALIT2 dental implant fixture (3.8mm width,13mm length) was placed on the mandible of a dried human cadaver in the region of 1st molar (using a definite protocol), and 15 control radiographs were taken with parallel Peri-Apical technique. Artificial pathologies were created gradually over time using 15% nitric acid beside the implant fixture and 18 radiographs, corresponding to 18 stages of the progress of the boney lesions, were taken as the case group continuously every 15 minutes in the same environmental conditions as the control group. Thereafter, all case and control radiographs were developed simultaneously and coded randomly. Finally, they were presented to 6 observers for detection of radiolucencies. The radiographs were then scanned by a digital scanner (HP Scanjet 7400 c series with transparency adaptor) and analyzed by PROFILER for evaluation of pathologies.

RESULTS

Stage 1 was diagnosed by two observers; while stage 2 and 3 were diagnosed by just one observer. None of the observers could detect stage 4; and stages 5-8 were detected by half the observers. Just one observer was able to detect stages consecutively; Starting from the 6th stage. But, using PROFILER, all stages from the beginning could be easily diagnosed.

DISCUSSION

Diagnosis of the first three stages by observers has been doubtful due to some skipping of stages by them; meanwhile all stages including the first three were easily diagnosed by PROFILER. This study showed that a far higher accuracy in the detection of progressive boney lesions around dental implants in earlier stages could  be obtained by Indirect Digital Imaging as compared to human eye. Further studies are needed to improve the software to make it a simple, costless and accurate way for the early detection of pathologies in maxillofacial region by every dentist.

DOWNLOAD

A conference paper in Farsi (Persian) providing more information about this research can be downloaded here (~ 560 kb).

PROFILER is absolutely free and can be downloaded here (~ 470 kb). It has a straightforward GUI and has been implemented with Matlab, so you should be able to simply run it. After downloading and unzipping the package, run profilergui from Matlab command line.

Your suggestions or questions are always welcome. Please feel free to contact me at anytime.