New approach to establish an object reference frame for dental arch in computer-aided surgical simulation

Area of Science:

• Dental medicine
• Computer-aided surgery
• Biomedical engineering

Background:

• Accurate dental arch alignment is crucial for successful computer-aided surgical simulation (CASS).
• Establishing an optimal object reference frame is essential for symmetrical alignment in orthognathic surgery.
• Existing methods like standard Principal Component Analysis (PCA) may have limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate the Principal Component Analysis-based Adaptive Minimum Euclidean Distances (PAMED) approach.
• To establish an optimal object reference frame for symmetrical dental arch alignment in CASS.
• To compare PAMED with triangular methods and standard PCA.

Main Methods:

• Development of the PAMED approach.
• Comparison with triangular methods and standard PCA using 30 maxillary digital models.
• Clinical evaluation of midsagittal and occlusal planes by three experienced evaluators.

Main Results:

• PAMED achieved "ideal" rankings for all 30 models for the midsagittal plane by all evaluators.
• PAMED and PCA showed high "ideal" rankings for the occlusal plane, while the triangular method also performed well.
• Differences among methods were minimal, but PAMED demonstrated superior consistency.

Conclusions:

• The PAMED method is the most reliable and consistent for establishing the dental arch reference frame in orthognathic surgical planning.
• The triangular method requires caution due to potential asymmetry issues.
• The standard PCA method is not recommended for this application.