Decodify® System: Cephalometrics as a risk manager applicative and administrative tool for the orthodontic clinic

Introduction: Cephalometrics may have limited use in orthodontics because of its subjective interpretation. An Artificial Intelligence (AI) system, the Decodify® System, was developed to allow the customized quantitative assessment of contextualized cephalometric data. In this article, the system is tested as an administrative tool in orthodontic offices. Methods: The development of algorithms includes the norms and standard deviations modeling of Brazilians’ cephalometric data, measured in lateral radiographs. In order to test the system, initial cephalograms of 60 orthodontic patients of two different orthodontic offices (30 cases each) were processed and re-processed by three different technicians. The intra-observer and inter-observer reproducibility and reliability indices were checked by paired comparisons. The risk in each orthodontic case, assessed by the electronic analysis, was compared by covariance matrices and agreement coefficients. Results: Levels of paired agreement inter-observers (versus golden-pattern) for 23 pairs of variables ranged from 0.68 (S-Go distance) to 0.98 (Na-Me distance) in an orthodontic clinic (JU) and from 0.66 (L1.APg angle) to 0.98 (S-Go distance) in the other (SP). All the correlations were significant at the p<0.001 level. The average of the agreement coefficients was 0.78 for one clinic (JU) and 0.75 for the other (SP). The agreement coefficients were significant at the p<0.001 level. Conclusions: The results of such research support that the analyses provided by the Decodify® System are reproducible and reliable. Therefore, the system can be applied in order to contextualize conventional cephalometric measurements and to generate individualized risk indices. The system may be used by orthodontists as an administrative tool in the daily professional evaluations. Abstract