The University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Dentistry has launched a community-based programme to detect oral health diseases among the elderly using mobile AI.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
The Dental AI Community Care Project features an AI-powered mobile application for detecting gum inflammation. It will train community volunteers, comprising dental students and community residents, to provide personalised advice on oral care backed by GumAI, a technology developed by a team of university researchers in China and Malaysia.
The mobile application presents gum analysis results in colours to easily identify potential oral issues: red for poor oral health, yellow indicates caution, and green shows good health.
HKU Dentistry aims to expand the project, which currently runs for an initial three months, across the 18 districts of Hong Kong. The project is backed by an elderly-focused trade union and a support organisation; it also received support from law and district officials.
WHY IT MATTERS
Over a decade-old government survey noted that nearly nine in 10 seniors in the city had signs of gum disease or periodontitis while almost half of the elderly had untreated dental caries.
Hong Kong seniors have increasingly accessed dental services over the past decade with the utilisation rate at 37% based on the latest government statistics in 2019. The Research Office of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council Secretariat attributed this to the government’s effort to increase service accessibility, including free dental care for seniors receiving long-term or day care services. However, dental services remain limited, partly due to the low availability of dental professionals – approximately 3.7 dentists serve every 10,000 residents in the city.
THE LARGER TREND
In June last year, HKU Dentistry announced its research demonstrating AI’s detection of gum inflammation or gingivitis in intraoral images of over 500 individuals. Findings, which were published in the World Dental Federation’s International Dental Journal, showed that the AI detected redness, swelling, and bleeding along the gum margin with over 90% accuracy. HKU Dentistry researchers collaborated with those from Hong Kong Chu Hai College in Hong Kong, China’s Guangdong University of Technology, and the National University of Malaysia for this study.
Beyond oral care, another research team from HKU Dentistry also developed a generative AI model for designing dental crowns. Their novel approach, called 3D-DCGAN (3D-Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Network), acquaints AI with good designs of natural and healthy dentitions. “During the training process, natural teeth morphological features were learned by the algorithm, so that it can design dental crowns comparable to a natural tooth — both morphologically and functionally,” co-research investigator Dr Hao Ding explained. The research sought to address the limitations of current computer-aided design and manufacturing digital workflows, particularly considering labour and time.
link