Nightmare fuel? Maybe – but in a historic moment for the dental profession, an AI-controlled autonomous robot has performed an entire procedure on a human patient for the first time, about eight times faster than a human dentist could do it.
The system, built by Boston company Perceptive, uses a hand-held 3D volumetric scanner, which builds a detailed 3D model of the mouth, including the teeth, gums and even nerves under the tooth surface, using optical coherence tomography, or OCT. Here's an example:
This cuts harmful X-Ray radiation out of the process, as OCT uses nothing more than light beams to build its volumetric models, which come out at high resolution, with cavities automatically detected at an accuracy rate around 90%.
At this point, the (human) dentist and patient can discuss what needs doing – but once those decisions are made, the robotic dental surgeon takes over. It plans out the operation, then jolly well goes ahead and does it.
The machine's first specialty: preparing a tooth for a dental crown. Perceptive claims this is generally a two-hour procedure that dentists will normally split into two visits. The robo-dentist knocks it off in closer to 15 minutes. Here's a time-lapse video of the drilling portion, looking very much like a CNC machine at work:
Remarkably, the company claims the machine can take care of business safely "even in the most movement-heavy conditions," and that dry run testing on moving humans has all been successful. There sure are some brave guinea pig types out there.
“We’re excited to successfully complete the world's first fully automated robotic dental procedure,” says Dr. Chris Ciriello, CEO and Founder of Perceptive – and clearly a man well versed in the art of speaking in the driest, crustiest press release vernacular. “This medical breakthrough enhances precision and efficiency of dental procedures, and democratizes access to better dental care, for improved patient experience and clinical outcomes. We look forward to advancing our system and pioneering scalable, fully automated dental healthcare solutions for patients.”
“Perceptive’s AI-driven robotic system will transform dentistry," adds one Karim Zaklama, DDS, a general dentist and member of Perceptive’s clinical advisory board. "The patient experience will be better because of streamlining procedures and enhancing patient comfort. The advanced imaging capabilities, particularly the intraoral scanner, provide unparalleled details which will enable us to diagnose issues earlier with greater accuracy and allow us to connect with patients more effectively. This efficiency allows us to focus more on personalized patient care and reduces chair time, enabling us to treat more patients effectively.”
While it's certainly confronting to imagine sitting in a chair letting a robot drill away at your teeth, it does make us wonder whether it's really that much more confronting than the idea of a human doing it.
High precision human-controlled robotic surgery is already advancing in leaps and bounds, taking the traditional need for an incredibly steady hand out of the picture – and as we're seeing in the humanoid space, the minute you start teleoperating a robot, you're potentially training it to take over and perform the same job autonomously at some point. So this is probably an idea you'll need to get used to in the coming years.
And there are clearly benefits. If you're in and out of the robo-dentist's chair in a quarter of an hour instead of two solid 60-minute marathons, that's a huge improvement. You don't seem to need to keep your mouth stretched quite as wide open, which could make those 15 minutes less fatiguing. And while the system will definitely cost money, it appears to save so much time that dental bills could well come down as a result.
The robot's not FDA-approved yet, and Perceptive hasn't placed a timeline on rollout, so it may be some years yet before the public gets access to this kind of treatment.
Certainly, the company is looking to extend the machine's capabilities and broaden the range of treatments it's got up its sleeve. One does wonder whether it'll need to be upgraded with a mechanical knee to put on your chest for a stubborn wisdom tooth removal ...
Source: Perceptive
