Clinical Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality-Based Dynamic Navigation for Implant Placement in the Anterior Maxilla

 Today's post dovetails well with a discussion I recently had on The Technology Evangelist Podcast with Dr. Mark Whitefield.  

Mark is an incredibly smart, outside the box thinker and the developer of the "Flex-on-X" implant retained denture system.  He's working on using a combination of AI and AR (Augmented Reality) vision to help during implant placement surgeries.  The concept is to use digital surgical glasses combined with magnification to superimpose CBCT and other digital info directly over the surgical site during treatment to simplify the procedure.  Imagine being able to see under the tissue live while you create the osteotomy!  Live and dynamically updating info throughout the surgical process is on the near horizon.  It's a fascinating discussion!

It also goes well with a recent study published in The Journal of Dentistry regarding using similar systems in a study based environment to evaluate the benefits or drawbacks to using this type of system in implant placement.  In a nutshell, the study found:

Results

The clinical integration of AI and MR-DN allowed accurate and time-efficient guided implant placement in the anterior maxilla.

However, there's a lot more to it than just the results achieved.  You can find the article here to get a really deep dive into how they performed the procedure and how they evaluated the results.  

The development of technologies that allow multiple datasets to be merged and projected over the surgical field through vision systems holds an incredible promise for surgery.  The potential benefits to both medicine and dentistry and massive.  My gut tells me that we are standing right on the edge of an incredible leap forward in how all surgeries are performed.  Information is powerful.  Simply put, the more data that a doctor has access to, the more potential for improvements we have.  Being able to take this clinical data and provide it directly into the doctor's eyes could change things incredibly.  

Be sure to watch the Dr. Mark Whitefield episode and then spend some time reading the study to see what the future of surgery holds.  

The podcast is available almost anywhere you get your podcasts.  To get links that will take you to your favorite platform follow this link to the Medidenta page that has all the info.