Digital Twins for Advancing Innovation and Optimizing Clinical Outcomes in Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial (DOC) Medicine

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  1. Goal
  2. Background
  3. Gaps and Opportunities
  4. Specific Areas of Interest
  5. References

Dental Materials &Biomaterials Program
Mineralized Tissue Physiology Program
Data Science, Computational Biology, & Bioinformatics Program

Integrative Biology & Infectious Disease Branch
Translational Genomics Research Branch
Division of Extramural Research

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Goal

The goal of this initiative is to revolutionize dental, oral, and craniofacial (DOC) medicine through the development and deployment of digital twin (DT) technologies. By creating dynamic virtual replicas of patient anatomy, biological systems, clinical scenarios, and predictive testing capabilities, this program aims to catalyze the development and translation of new innovations and optimize treatment planning and care delivery. The integration of fit-for-purpose DTs will address the limitations of traditional, generalized treatment approaches by providing highly detailed, real-time simulations that allow for precise, personalized diagnostics and treatment strategies. This advancement will significantly improve patient outcomes by enabling more accurate predictions, optimizing intervention plans, and facilitating continuous adjustments based on patient-specific data. Ultimately, this initiative seeks to drive a paradigm shift in DOC medicine, offering a more individualized, efficient, and effective approach to patient care.

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Background

Current practices in DOC medicine often rely on generalized approaches, leading to suboptimal outcomes and patient experiences. Traditional treatment planning and interventions at both individual and community levels lack the precision necessary to optimize outcomes effectively. Digital twins offer a paradigm shift by digitally replicating and simulating specific structures and conditions across multiscale systems (cellular – patient – community) and throughout the lifespan. A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine defines a DT as “a set of virtual information constructs that mimics the structure, context, and behavior of a natural, engineered, or social system, is dynamically updated with data from its physical twin, has a predictive capability, and informs decisions that realize value."

DTs integrate real-time data updates, predictive analytics, and systems dynamics to inform clinical decisions and enhance treatment efficacy. While predominantly utilized in industrial sectors, DTs are increasingly applicable in health care, particularly for complex biological systems in DOC medicine. The use of DTs can begin with capturing digital models of a patient's oral anatomy using advanced imaging technologies. These models, processed through specialized software platforms, enable optimized planning of dental procedures such as implant placement or orthodontic adjustments, allowing clinicians to predict outcomes and optimize treatment plans before implementation. Throughout treatment, DTs facilitate real-time adjustments based on patient data updates, ensuring optimal outcomes. This bidirectional interaction involves continuous evaluations between virtual models and physical patient responses, enhancing treatment adaptation and effectiveness.

Leveraging DTs, clinicians can make more informed decisions for diagnosis and management, educate patients more effectively, and achieve improved treatment outcomes and patient satisfaction. This approach is particularly relevant for complex technical and biological systems, allowing for temporal and spatial characteristics of the patient, or community, with dynamic updates using real clinical data.

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Gaps and Opportunities

DTs offer the opportunity to gain better understanding of complex processes through a systems approach in dynamic modeling of real-time data to inform insights for predictive analytics and timely monitoring of potential oral complications, inflammatory conditions, and clinical frameworks. Through individualized treatment planning in dentistry and oral medicine, DTs can provide optimized solutions for improving outcomes in DOC related health care. Leveraging interdisciplinary collaborations, patient-specific data, and advanced computational algorithms, DTs developed from this initiative will pave the way for a more individualized and efficient approach to dental and oral health care.

Suboptimal patient outcomes are often seen from routine clinical procedures, such as positioning and stability in dental implant placement, efficient tooth movement in orthodontic treatment, and precise diagnosis of temporomandibular joint disorders (TMDs). Effective diagnosis and treatment planning are also critical in oral cancers, aiming for eradication of tumors while preserving vital structures. Challenges in implementing DTs in dentistry and oral medicine must be addressed for successful adoption. These include data privacy, infrastructure, interoperability, and cybersecurity concerns. Scaling and fidelity are important challenges to address in dental practice. Regulatory and ethical considerations are crucial for compliance and acceptance. Effective DT development requires collaboration among experts from various domains, including mathematicians, dentists, engineers, oncologists, computer scientists, and others. Accurate virtual replicas of patients' oral anatomy and real-time data updates with robust collection and analysis are crucial for evaluating DT impact. Furthermore, credibility assessment including Verification, Validation, and Uncertainty Quantification (VVUQ) techniques need to be applied throughout the life cycle of digital twins. Interdisciplinary collaboration between clinicians and data scientists is vital for effective integration of DTs into dental workflows and for interpretation of results to ensure patient satisfaction and trust. Dentists require user-friendly interfaces and training. Despite these challenges, the potential benefits of DTs in advancing individualized dental and oral medicine outweigh the risks. By leveraging patient-specific data and advanced computational algorithms, DTs can optimize treatment planning, enable early disease detection, and enhance treatment response in oral health care settings.

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Specific Areas of Interest

Fit-for-purpose applications of DT technology in dental, oral, and craniofacial medicine, include, but are not limited to:

  • DOC technology development tools: Use of DTs to accelerate and optimize preclinical research and translational development of dental, oral, and craniofacial innovations through predictive virtual testing and design optimization supporting regulatory evaluation, scale-up, and manufacturability.
  • Application of DTs: Development, technical verification and validation, uncertainty quantification, and clinical validation of DTs for specific DOC applications, across multiscale systems (cellular – patient – community), and throughout the lifespan, such as:
    • Individualized treatment planning: Optimizing dental implant placement, orthodontic interventions, and treatment for TMDs, oral cancers, and craniofacial malformations.
    • Early detection and intervention: Enhancing diagnostic capabilities for early disease detection and intervention in TMDs, oral cancers, and craniofacial malformations.
  • Clinical workflow integration: Seamless incorporation of DTs into routine dental care and training to improve adoption, scalability, and sustainability of DTs. Offering clinicians user-friendly interfaces and training to interpret data effectively and enhance patient care.
  • Impact evaluation: Assessing DT-based approaches impact on treatment precision, efficiency, patient satisfaction, and clinical outcomes.
  • Individual to community application: Implementation of DTs to customize oral health care solutions to local demographic needs, enhancing accessibility and affordability of advanced dental treatments.
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References

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Last Reviewed
September 2024