Use of Radiomics in the Evaluation of Bone Quality After Alveolar Ridge Preservation

Bone regeneration techniques using biomaterials are commonly used in dentistry. These include alveolar ridge preservation, sinus lift, and bone ridge augmentation, which are safe procedures to maintain or restore bone for future dental implants. These surgical interventions utilize specific materials following well-defined guidelines. However, to truly understand how much new bone has formed, a specific tissue analysis called histomorphometry is required, which entails analyzing the bone that will be removed during implant placement. To simplify these evaluations, new techniques are being studied. One of these is radiomics, an approach that analyzes medical images (such as radiographs or CT scans) by searching for details that cannot be seen by the naked eye. The goal is to create predictive models that assist doctors in their decision-making. This study aims to evaluate the quality of bone regeneration using radiomics, analyzing radiographic images taken 6 months after the regeneration procedure. The collected data will be compared with the histomorphometry results and used to train advanced artificial intelligence models. The ultimate objective is to create a large database that allows doctors to evaluate post-regeneration images without having to resort to invasive sampling.