Accuracy and Reproducibility of Semidigital Versus Fully Digital Cephalometric Tracings Using a New Computer Program Versus Conventional Methods (Gold Standards): A Preliminary Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Cephalometric tracing can be done either conventionally or using computers. Digital dentistry and digital orthodontics have considerably facilitated procedures. Still, their diagnostic accuracy needs assessment. Many orthodontic programs have been developed for this purpose. The efficacy and reliability of such software are usually compared with the conventional method (gold standard). We used novel and more stringent methods of assessment to test a program in this regard. Methods: This study was performed on 10,302 tracing evaluations within 101 cases. Lateral cephalograms of 101 patients were landmarked using two methods (on paper vs. on a computer screen) and traced using three methods (completely conventionally [gold standard]; landmarks were identified on paper, but measurements were calculated by computer; landmarks were identified on the computer screen, and measurements were calculated by the computer program). A total of 15 landmarks and 17 cephalometric tracing measurements were determined via the abovementioned methods. The tracing errors were defined as differences between each pair of tracing methods, as well their absolute values (a total of 6 different tracing errors). Intraclass correlations were calculated for tracing values. Tracing errors were compared with the value 2, as the clinically acceptable range. However, they were also compared with the values zero as well as one hundredth of the mean of gold standard (as a more conservative value), using a one‐sample t ‐test ( α = 0.05). Results: All tracing errors were smaller than the clinically acceptable limits. Moreover, most simple errors were close to zero, and/or below the criterion of 1/100 of the mean of the gold standard. Furthermore, the more difficult error tests, that is, the directionless absolute errors, were all below 2; additionally, they were either below the 1/100 of absolute of the gold standard means or at the level of those means. Finally, the intraobserver reliabilities were high. All the 102 simple errors and absolute errors (on 101 lateral cephalograms) were significantly below 2 ( p < 0.0005, clinically acceptable). Conclusions: The accuracy was appropriate. Of the 51 simple tracing errors, only 9 were significantly greater than zero, and many of them were below or at the level of 1/100 of the gold standard means. All the directionless (absolute) errors were significantly greater than zero. However, in the case of those calculated as “absolute value of (gold standard subtracted by fully digital method),” all errors were below or at the level of 1/100 of the absolute of gold standards’ means. The intraobserver reliabilities were high.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".