U-Net-Based Deep Learning for Simultaneous Segmentation and Agenesis Detection of Primary and Permanent Teeth in...

Background/Objectives: Panoramic radiographs aid diagnosis in paediatric dentistry, but errors occur. Deep learning-based artificial intelligence offers improved accuracy by reducing overlap-related and interpretive mistakes. This study aimed to develop a U-Net-based deep learning model for simultaneous tooth segmentation and agenesis detection, capable of distinguishing between primary and permanent teeth in panoramic radiographs. Methods: Publicly available panoramic radiographs, along with images collected from the archives of Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University Faculty of Dentistry, were used. The dataset totalled 1697 panoramic radiographs after applying exclusion criteria for artifacts and edentulous cases. Manual segmentation was performed by two paediatric dentists and one dentomaxillofacial radiologist. The images were split into training (80%), validation (10%), and test (10%) sets. A U-Net architecture was trained to identify both primary and permanent teeth and to detect tooth agenesis. Results: Dental agenesis was detected in 14.6% of 1697 OPGs, predominantly affecting the mandibular second premolars (32.5%) and maxillary lateral incisors (27.6%). Intra- and inter-researcher intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were 0.995 and 0.990, respectively (p > 0.05). On the test set, the model achieved a Dice similarity coefficient of 0.8773, precision of 0.9115, recall of 0.8974, and an F1 score of 0.9027. Validation accuracy was 96.71%, indicating reliable performance across diverse datasets. Conclusions: The proposed deep learning model automates tooth segmentation and agenesis detection for both primary and permanent dentitions in panoramic radiographs. Its high-performance metrics suggest improved accuracy and efficiency in paediatric dental diagnostics, potentially reducing clinician workload and minimizing diagnostic errors.