Development of novel artificial intelligence systems to predict facial morphology after orthognathic surgery and orthodontic treatment in Japanese patients

From a socio-psychological standpoint, improving the morphology of the facial soft-tissues is regarded as an important therapeutic goal in modern orthodontic treatment. Currently, many of the algorithms used in commercially available software programs that are said to provide the function of performing profile prediction are based on the false assumption that the amount of movement of hard-tissue and soft-tissue has a proportional relationship. The specification of the proportionality constant value depends on the operator, and there is little evidence to support the validity of the prediction result. Thus, the present study attempted to develop artificial intelligence (AI) systems that predict the three-dimensional (3-D) facial morphology after orthognathic surgery and orthodontic treatment based on the results of previous treatment. This was a retrospective study in a secondary adult care setting. A total of 137 patients who underwent orthognathic surgery (n = 72) and orthodontic treatment with four premolar extraction (n = 65) were enrolled. Lateral cephalograms and 3-D facial images were obtained before and after treatment. We have developed two AI systems to predict facial morphology after orthognathic surgery (System S) and orthodontic treatment (System E) using landmark-based geometric morphometric methods together with deep learning methods; where cephalometric changes during treatment and the coordinate values of the faces before treatment were employed as predictive variables. Eleven-fold cross-validation showed that the average system errors were 0.94 mm and 0.69 mm for systems S and E, respectively. The total success rates, when success was defined by a system error of < 1 mm, were 54% and 98% for systems S and E, respectively. The total success rates when success was defined by a system error of < 2 mm were both 100%. AI systems to predict facial morphology after treatment were therefore confirmed to be clinically acceptable.