Is Three-Dimensional Soft Tissue Prediction by Software Accurate?

Area of Science:

• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Medical Imaging
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Virtual surgical planning is increasingly used in orthognathic surgery.
• Accurate prediction of soft tissue changes is crucial for patient outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the accuracy of a soft tissue prediction program in simulating actual surgical outcomes.
• To identify areas of significant deviation between predicted and actual soft tissue positions.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of preoperative and postoperative computed tomography (CT) data from 29 orthognathic surgery patients.
• Utilizing Simplant Pro software for virtual surgical simulation and soft tissue prediction.
• Superimposition and comparative analysis of predicted versus actual postoperative soft tissue images.

Main Results:

• Significant prediction errors were observed at key facial landmarks, including mouth corners, labrale inferius, and pogonion.
• Vector analysis indicated a tendency for predicted points to be located more left, superior, and anterior than actual positions.
• Anterior-posterior predictions demonstrated the highest degree of inaccuracy, particularly for craniofacial landmarks like the pronasale.

Conclusions:

• Current virtual surgery software requires enhancement to improve prediction accuracy for soft tissue movement.
• The software shows potential for predicting craniofacial soft tissue landmarks but needs refinement.
• Addressing anterior-posterior prediction inaccuracies is essential for clinical utility.