# Teeth Localization and Lesion Segmentation in CBCT Images using SpatialConfiguration-Net and U-Net

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.12189 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.12189/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Dec 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Delving Deep into Rectifiers: Surpassing Human-Level Performance on ImageNet Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.01852/) (2015)
- [A Novel Focal Tversky loss function with improved Attention U-Net for lesion segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.07842/) (2018)
- [Integrating Spatial Configuration into Heatmap Regression Based CNNs for Landmark Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.00748/) (2019)
- [Combo Loss: Handling Input and Output Imbalance in Multi-Organ Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.02798/) (2018)
- [Learning Human Pose Estimation Features with Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.7302/) (2013)
- [Pose-Aware Instance Segmentation Framework from Cone Beam CT Images for Tooth Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.02143/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Synthetic Augmentation for Anatomical Landmark Localization using DDPMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.12489/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The localization of teeth and segmentation of periapical lesions in cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images are crucial tasks for clinical diagnosis and treatment planning, which are often time-consuming and require a high level of expertise. However, automating these tasks is challenging due to variations in shape, size, and orientation of lesions, as well as similar topologies among teeth. Moreover, the small volumes occupied by lesions in CBCT images pose a class imbalance problem that needs to be addressed. In this study, we propose a deep learning-based method utilizing two convolutional neural networks: the SpatialConfiguration-Net (SCN) and a modified version of the U-Net. The SCN accurately predicts the coordinates of all teeth present in an image, enabling precise cropping of teeth volumes that are then fed into the U-Net which detects lesions via segmentation. To address class imbalance, we compare the performance of three reweighting loss functions. After evaluation on 144 CBCT images, our method achieves a 97.3% accuracy for teeth localization, along with a promising sensitivity and specificity of 0.97 and 0.88, respectively, for subsequent lesion detection.