Automated classification of skeletal malocclusion in German orthodontic patients.

Objectives: Precisely diagnosing skeletal class is mandatory for correct orthodontic treatment. Artificial intelligence (AI) could increase efficiency during diagnostics and contribute to automated workflows. So far, no AI-driven process can differentiate between skeletal classes I, II, and III in German orthodontic patients. This prospective cross-sectional study aimed to develop machine- and deep-learning models for diagnosing their skeletal class based on the gold-standard individualised ANB of Panagiotidis and Witt.

Materials and methods: Orthodontic patients treated in Germany contributed to the study population. Pre-treatment cephalometric parameters, sex, and age served as input variables. Machine-learning models performed were linear discriminant analysis (LDA), random forest (RF), decision tree (DT), K-nearest neighbours (KNN), support vector machine (SVM), Gaussian naïve Bayes (NB), and multi class logistic regression (MCLR). Furthermore, an artificial neural network (ANN) was conducted.

Results: 1277 German patients presented skeletal class I (48.79%), II (27.56%) and III (23.64%). The best machine-learning model, which considered all input parameters, was RF with 100% accuracy, with Calculated_ANB being the most important (0.429). The model with Calculated_ANB only achieved 100% accuracy (KNN), but ANB alone was inappropriate (71-76% accuracy). The ANN with all parameters and Calculated_ANB achieved 95.31% and 100% validation-accuracy, respectively.

Conclusions: Machine- and deep-learning methods can correctly determine an individual's skeletal class. Calculated_ANB was the most important among all input parameters, which, therefore, requires precise determination.

Clinical relevance: The AI methods introduced may help to establish digital and automated workflows in cephalometric diagnostics, which could contribute to the relief of the orthodontic practitioner.