Remote diagnosis of traumatic dental injuries using digital photographs captured via a mobile phone.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Intra-oral photographs have been aided diagnosis of several pathologies in teledentistry. Mobile phone cameras may produce high-quality photographs, presenting itself as a viable tool for remote diagnosis of traumatic dental injuries. AIM: To evaluate the levels of interexaminer agreement in cases of traumatic dental injuries when comparing diagnoses conducted in person and remotely. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The sample included 40 patients with 73 traumatized teeth, and a total of 90 diagnoses, who had presented to two dental clinics, one private, and the other public, in Brazil's Federal District. The dental history and clinical examination data were registered in electronic forms, and digital photographs were captured with a mobile phone camera and uploaded to a cloud drive. Six remote examiners formulated their diagnoses based solely on photographic analysis. Thereafter, they were provided with additional clinical data and asked to provide a second round of diagnoses. These diagnoses were compared to those conducted in person, which were considered the gold standard. The data were analyzed with Gwet's AC1 interexaminers' measure to evaluate the agreement between the in-surgery and remote diagnoses. RESULTS: The levels of interexaminer agreement between the in-surgery and remote diagnoses formulated exclusively with images were 0.83 or higher (95% confidence interval 0.73-0.91), and 0.93 or higher (95% confidence interval 0.88-0.97), when clinical information was available. CONCLUSION: The precision of the remote diagnoses was comparable to the diagnoses conducted in person. The levels of interexaminer agreement were higher when clinical data were included with the images. Mobile phones may be an effective tool for capturing images that assist in the remote diagnosis of traumatic dental injuries.