Detection and Grading Severity of Caries in Dental X-ray Images

Abstract

It is significant to analyze the dental images in order to improve and quantify medical images for correct diagnosis. Caries or cavity is one of the most prevalent diseases of the teeth. Dentists are putting the best effort to identify the problem at an earlier stage. The proposed method used in this paper is focused on the challenges faced during the root canal edge extraction from dental radiographic images, which is a major problem besides cavity detection and extraction. The image processing techniques helps to identify the caries that provide dentists with the precise results of the area affected by the caries. The proposed methodology consists of preprocessing of bitewing radiographic images using top hat bottom hat transformation followed by the sharpening filter for edge enhancement. This combinational approach provides qualitative and quantitative assessment to dentists on the presence of cavity. The caries are extracted by some morphological tools to grade the severity on the basis of some metric values. Preparatory experiments show the significance of the proposed method to extract cavity and grade its effect on the tooth.