Comparison of traditional manual and automatic systems for placing cephalometric points on a teleroentgenogram of the head in lateral projection

The purpose of this study was to compare the reliability and processing speed of automated and manual lateral cephalogram (LC) landmarking in various software. This work was also done to determine the educational potential of artificial neural networks for inexperienced doctors as well as the potential for assistance for experienced doctors. For the study, thirty LCs were chosen at random. Dolphin Imaging and ViSurgery online were both tested. Each program developed 30 projects based on the 30 LCs studied. Each project included 48 cephalometric points. In both systems, the Cephalometric for Orthognathic Surgery analysis (COGS, Burstone et al. 1978) was performed automatically. Five experienced doctors and five first-year residents participated in the study. The processing time was documented, and the statistical significance of the measurements was determined. Two of the eight measurements revealed statistically significant differences between Dolphin and ViSurgery. These variations are not clinically significant. The average time spent on image processing by experienced doctors in Dolphin Imaging was 3 minutes 36 seconds, and 3 minutes 9 seconds in ViSurgery, while these indicators were 4 minutes 33 seconds and 3 minutes 50 seconds, respectively, for inexperienced colleagues. The study found that the results of cephalometric measurements in the Dolphin and ViSurgery programs do not differ significantly for the majority of measurements.The average amount of time spent on LC processing by experienced doctors in ViSurgery was 12.5% less than in Dolphin. This difference was 15.8% for first-year residents.

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