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Updated: Jul 24, 2025
Digital Hybrid Model Preparation for Virtual Planning of Reconstructive Dentoalveolar Surgical Procedures
Published on: August 5, 2021
Automated calculation of ontology-based planning proposals: An application in reconstructive oral and maxillofacial
Niclas Hagen1, Frederic Weichel2, Reinald Kühle2
1Institute of Medical Informatics, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany.
Background:
Structured modelling of surgical knowledge and its automated processing is still challenging. The aim of this work is to introduce a novel approach for automated calculation of ontology-based planning proposals in mandibular reconstruction and conduct a feasibility study.
Methods:
The presented approach is composed of an RDF(S) ontology, a 3D mandible template and a calculator-optimiser algorithm to automatically calculate reconstruction proposals with fibula grafts. To validate the viability of the approach, a feasibility study was conducted on 164 simulated mandibular reconstructions.
Results:
The ontology defines 244 different reconstruction variants and 80 analyses for optimization. In 146 simulated cases, a proposal could be automatically calculated (average time 8.79 ± 4.03 s). The assessments of the proposals by three clinical experts indicate the viability of the approach.
Conclusions:
Due to the modular separation between computational logic and domain knowledge, the developed concepts can be easily maintained, reused and adapted for other applications.
