Automated tooth crown design with optimized shape and biomechanics properties

Xiaoxian Jin; Shengfa Wang; Jiangbei Hu; Xiaowei Xu; Yongji Shi; Haishi Yu; Jinwu Wang; Kang Li; Xiaomin Cheng; Moyu Shao; Hongkai Wang

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2023.1216651

Automated tooth crown design with optimized shape and biomechanics properties

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 Nov 28:11:1216651. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1216651. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Xiaoxian Jin¹, Shengfa Wang², Jiangbei Hu², Xiaowei Xu³, Yongji Shi³, Haishi Yu³, Jinwu Wang⁴, Kang Li^{5

6}, Xiaomin Cheng⁷, Moyu Shao⁷, Hongkai Wang^{1

8}

Affiliations

¹ School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Medicine, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.
² School of Software Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.
³ Shandong Maier Medical Technology Co., Ltd., Rizhao, Shandong, China.
⁴ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Orthopedic Implant, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
⁵ West China Biomedical Big Data Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
⁶ Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Shanghai, China.
⁷ Jiangsu Yunqianbai Digital Technology Co., Ltd., Xuzhou, China.
⁸ Liaoning Key Laboratory of Integrated Circuit and Biomedical Electronic System, Dalian, China.

Abstract

Despite the large demand for dental restoration each year, the design of crown restorations is mainly performed via manual software operation, which is tedious and subjective. Moreover, the current design process lacks biomechanics optimization, leading to localized stress concentration and reduced working life. To tackle these challenges, we develop a fully automated algorithm for crown restoration based on deformable model fitting and biomechanical optimization. From a library of dental oral scans, a conditional shape model (CSM) is constructed to represent the inter-teeth shape correlation. By matching the CSM to the patient's oral scan, the optimal crown shape is estimated to coincide with the surrounding teeth. Next, the crown is seamlessly integrated into the finish line of preparation via a surface warping step. Finally, porous internal supporting structures of the crown are generated to avoid excessive localized stresses. This algorithm is validated on clinical oral scan data and achieved less than 2 mm mean surface distance as compared to the manual designs of experienced human operators. The mechanical simulation was conducted to prove that the internal supporting structures lead to uniform stress distribution all over the model.

Keywords: biomechanical simulation; conditional shape model; full-crown restorations; statistical shape model; supporting structure optimization.

Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program No. 2020YFB1711500, 2020YFB1711501, 2020YFB1711503, 2020YFB1709402, and 2021YFA1003003, the general program of the National Natural Science Fund of China (Nos 81971693 and 61971445), Hainan Province Key Research and Development Plan ZDYF2021SHFZ244, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos DUT22YG229 and DUT22YG205), the funding of Liaoning Key Lab of IC & BME System and Dalian Engineering Research Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging, the 1-3-5 project for disciplines of excellence, West China Hospital, Sichuan University (ZYYC21004).