At the beginning of the digital revolution, orthodontic software was used to gather all the records of patients in a digital manner.
Panoramic x-rays, photographs, and cephalometric tracings were archived in each patient’s file to help diagnose the patient and create an orthodontic treatment plan.
The capabilities of this software and these approaches were limited to the gathering of 2-dimensional images, whereas study models were not visualized on the computer screen, thus creating difficulty in combining all the patient information in a single file.
Currently, the core of a digital office is a software that gathers all digital information to create a virtual patient.
An example is Dolphin Imaging software (Dolphin Imaging and Management Solutions, Chatsworth, Calif), which is an imaging and management software for digital offices in which analog and digital information can be gathered and visualized as a single 3D rendering file.
This software enables orthodontists to overlay a CBCT image with a facial and intraoral scan, perform digital measurements, and trace a cephalogram, thus assisting orthodontists in the diagnosis of a patient’s orthodontic problem, setting treatment goals, simulating treatment, and defining a treatment plan.
US$208.24
In addition, the software enables the orthodontist to present the treatment plan and the outcome at the end of treatment to the patient.
Surgical splints can also be designed and sent for 3D printing in orthognathic surgery patients, offering the ability to simulate the final orthognathic surgery result.
Moreover, digital records can be entered into the software throughout and after treatment to assess the course of action by simply superimposing the initial and progressing 3D scans.
New software has been released that enables the assessment and examination of panoramic x-rays, CBCT, and cephalometric pictures.
Those software programs all use AI to trace cephalograms automatically, segment CBCT images, and up to a point, diagnose dental or orthodontic problems.
CephX (Orca, Las Vegas, NV) is an example of an online service offering cephalogram analysis and CBCT image segmentation.
Another program that offers automatic cephalometric analysis is the cast scan imaging software (version 8; Carestream Dental LLC,
Atlanta, Ga), whereas Diagnocat (Tel-Aviv, Israel) is another company that offers panoramic analysis and diagnosis and CBCT automatic segmentation.
In addition, there are various softwares that do a CBCT automatic segmentation for airway measurement.
