The Application of Mixed Reality in Root Canal Treatment

The priority of modern dentistry is to keep patients’ teeth for as long as possible. Tooth extraction is a procedure performed as a last resort when conservative methods and endodontic surgery procedures have not brought the expected results. As a consequence, the number of patients in dental offices, who require first and repeated endodontic treatment, is increasing. Thus, the development of new technologies in the medical industry, including microscopy, computer tomography (CT), as well as diode and neodymium-YAG-erbium lasers, enables dentists to increase the percentage of successful treatments. Moreover, mixed reality (MR) is a very new technology, in which the 3D view can help plan or simulate various types of tasks before they will be carried out in real life. In dentistry, 3D holography can be applied to display CT data to plan endodontic treatment. The most important element in effective root canal treatment is the precise imaging of the root canal. The CT scans allow dentists to view the anatomy of the patient’s tooth with much higher precision and understanding than using 2D radiography (RTG-radiographic photo) pictures. Recently, the development of new 3D technologies allows dentists to obtain even more data from existing CT scans. In this paper, the CT scan data were applied to generate patient teeth in 3D and simulate the view of the root canal’s anatomy in MR devices, i.e., Microsoft HoloLens 2. Using DICOM RAW data from the CT exam, we generated a 3D model of the jaw with a tooth. In the next step, the crown of the tooth was removed in a similar way to how a dentist would do this using a dental handpiece. Furthermore, all root canals were cleaned of everything inside. This way we achieved empty tunnels, namely root canals. Finally, we added appropriate lighting, similar to the type of lighting that dentists use. The proposed approach enables to display of the root canals in the same way as during the endodontic procedure using a microscope. It allows for the visualization of the root canal and changing its direction, in which dimensional accuracy is crucial. It turns out that mixed reality can be considered a complementary method to the traditional approach, which reduces the amount of time for the root canal treatment procedure by up to 72.25%, depending on the complexity of the case, and increases its effectiveness. Thus, the mixed reality-based system can be considered an effective tool for planning dental treatment.