Background:

Jaw deformity diagnosis requires objective tests. Current methods, like cephalometry, have limitations. However, recent studies have shown that machine learning can diagnose jaw deformities in two dimensions. Therefore, we hypothesized that a multilayer perceptron (MLP) could accurately diagnose jaw deformities in three dimensions (3D).

Purpose:

Examine the hypothesis by focusing on anomalous mandibular position. We aimed to: (1) create a machine learning model to diagnose mandibular retrognathism and prognathism; and (2) compare its performance with traditional cephalometric methods.

Study design, setting, sample:

An in-silico experiment on deidentified retrospective data. The study was conducted at the Houston Methodist Research Institute and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Included were patient records with jaw deformities and preoperative 3D facial models. Patients with significant jaw asymmetry were excluded.

Predictor variables:

The tests used to diagnose mandibular anteroposterior position are: (1) SNB angle; (2) facial angle; (3) mandibular unit length (MdUL); and (4) MLP model.

Main outcome variable:

The resultant diagnoses: normal, prognathic, or retrognathic.

Covariates:

None.

Analyses:

A senior surgeon labeled the patients’ mandibles as prognathic, normal, or retrognathic, creating a gold standard. Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute developed an MLP model to diagnose mandibular prognathism and retrognathism using the 3D coordinates of 50 landmarks. The performance of the MLP model was compared with three traditional cephalometric measurements: (1) SNB, (2) facial angle, and (3) MdUL. The primary metric used to assess the performance was diagnostic accuracy. McNemar’s exact test tested the difference between traditional cephalometric measurement and MLP. Cohen’s Kappa measured inter-rater agreement between each method and the gold standard.

Results:

The sample included 101 patients. The diagnostic accuracy of SNB, facial angle, MdUL, and MLP were 74.3, 74.3, 75.3, and 85.2%, respectively. McNemar’s test shows that our MLP performs significantly better than the SNB (P = .027), facial angle (P = .019), and MdUL (P = .031). The agreement between the traditional cephalometric measurements and the surgeon’s diagnosis was fair. In contrast, the agreement between the MLP and the surgeon was moderate.

Conclusion and relevance:

The performance of the MLP is significantly better than that of the traditional cephalometric measurements.