Detection of occlusal caries based on digital image processing

The aim of this work is to present an automated non supervised method for the detection of occlusal caries based on photographic color images. The proposed method consists of three steps: (a) detection of decalcification areas, (b) detection of occlusal caries areas, and (c) fusion of the results. The detection process includes pre-processing of the images, segmentation and post-processing, where objects not corresponding to areas of interest are eliminated through the utilization of rules expressing the medical knowledge. The preprocessing, segmentation and post-processing are differentiated depending on the areas that have to be detected (decalcification or occlusal areas). The method was evaluated using a set of 60 images where 286 areas of interest were manually segmented by an expert. The obtained sensitivity and precision is 92% and 80%, respectively.