An Efficient Segmentation Algorithm for Panoramic Dental Images

Imaging techniques play an important role in improving the early diagnosis and detection process that helps specialists, and dentists to make an accurate diagnosis. One of the most useful medical images used by dentists is a panoramic radiographic image, which is used for diagnostic diseases that is requiring a broad coverage of the jaws. Segmentation is a fundamental step in any image application. The accuracy of segmentation process determines the success or failure of the final analysis process. The wisdom tooth is the third molar, because the lack of room to allow the wisdom teeth to erupt, it commonly affects other teeth as they developed and become partially erupted or impacted. In order to diagnose the problems with the wisdom teeth automatically and prepare the image for final analysis, a pre-processing step is proposed to prepare the panoramic image for segmentation, and then a segmentation algorithm is implemented and followed by post-processing stage.