This project is a collaborative approach of the Computer Science Department And the Department for Oral Surgery, Oral Radiology and Oral Medicine at the University Basel.

Surgical extraction of wisdom teeth is the most commonly performed procedure in oral surgery. Depending on the anatomical position and the distance of the roots to the mandibular canal, this procedure implies the risk of injury of the inferior alveolar nerve. In the worst case this leads to a permanent loss of sensation of the lower lip. With Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT), a new imaging technology is available, which gives a detailed representation of the patient’s anatomy with minimal radiation dose. The resulting three-dimensional images open new possibilities for risk assessment and planning of these surgeries.

The goal of this project is to develop a method for automatic segmentation of the wisdom tooth and the mandibular canal from the CBCT images. For being able to perform an automatic risk analysis, we plan to perform segmentation of the mandibular canal and the wisdom tooth. Besides allowing for a risk assessment, having a segmentation of these tissues is of independent interest for the clinical application. It becomes possible to generate a three-dimensional model of the detailed patient’s anatomy, which can support surgery planning and serve as a visual aid for patient education. In parallel, the indicators for an injury of the inferior alveolar nerve given in these images are studied by experienced oral surgeons. The pre-operative risk assessment of the surgeons will be compared with the actual outcome of the surgery. Based on the experience gained in this study a software for automatic risk assessment from the images will be developed and evaluated on the collected data.

The concluding objective of this collaborative study is to compare an automatic risk assessment (software) with the risk assessment of experienced oral surgeons. The goal is to evaluate the outcome of CBCT-images for the patient.