Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Oral and maxillofacial surgery is a specialised discipline at the interface of dentistry and medicine that addresses diseases, injuries and defects of the mouth, jaws, face and neck. Its scope spans routine dentoalveolar procedures such as tooth extractions and implant placement, advanced bone augmentation techniques for deficient ridges, congenital and acquired deformity correction through orthognathic and craniofacial surgery, management of traumatic facial fractures, reconstruction following tumour resection, and repair of temporomandibular joint disorders. Surgeons also treat peripheral nerve injuries, perform cleft lip and palate repair, and integrate aesthetic interventions to restore form as well as function. Global advances in three-dimensional imaging, computer-assisted planning, biomaterial science and tissue engineering have refined diagnosis, treatment planning and surgical precision. A multidisciplinary approach involving orthodontics, prosthodontics, neurology and psychology underpins comprehensive care, emphasising patient-centred outcomes in both appearance and quality of life.

Research from Nature Portfolio

A novel deep-learning framework was developed to classify the severity of alveolar bone defects in cleft lip and palate patients from three-dimensional surface models. By rendering multiple two-dimensional views of digitally segmented maxillary models and aggregating features via attention layers, the algorithm achieved over 82 percent accuracy in assigning defects to clinically defined severity groups, while providing interpretable heat-maps to visualise the anatomical regions influencing each decision.

Investigators used three-dimensional computed tomography to correlate bony orbital anatomy with external eyebrow landmarks in adults. Linear regression equations derived from landmark-to-plane distances enabled prediction of eyebrow height, medial-lateral position and curvature from orbital rim morphology. The study demonstrated that the superior margin of the eyebrow could be estimated within a few millimetres, informing both forensic facial reconstruction and surgical planning.

An image-analysis tool employing discrete curvature measurements on triangular surface meshes quantified changes in bony contour after orbital fracture reconstruction. By comparing pre- and postoperative computed tomography meshes in regions of interest such as the inferior orbital rim and anterior maxilla, the method objectively captured improvements in surface smoothness and symmetry, offering a reproducible metric for assessing surgical outcomes.

Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in oral and maxillofacial surgery across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Alveolar cleft: A congenital bony gap in the maxillary ridge associated with cleft lip and palate.

Guided Bone Regeneration: Placement of barrier membranes to exclude soft tissue and permit selective bone cell repopulation in a defect.

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC): A multipotent cell capable of differentiating into bone, cartilage or other connective tissues, with immunomodulatory properties.

Convolutional neural network (CNN): A deep-learning architecture designed to automatically learn spatial features from image data for tasks such as landmark detection or classification.

Curvature measurement: Computational analysis of surface geometry to quantify local bending or contour of three-dimensional meshes.

Inferior alveolar nerve: A branch of the mandibular division of the trigeminal nerve that supplies sensation to lower teeth and chin.

Neuropathic pain: Pain arising from direct injury to the somatosensory system, characterised by burning, tingling or shooting sensations.

Neurosensory testing: Clinical evaluation of sensory nerve function using quantitative and qualitative methods such as two-point discrimination, monofilament testing and thermal thresholds.

Decellularized allograft: Donor tissue processed to remove cellular elements, preserving an extracellular matrix scaffold for host cell repopulation.

Nerve coaptation: Surgical alignment and suturing of severed nerve ends to facilitate directed axonal regrowth and functional recovery.

References

1. Interpretable artificial intelligence for classification of alveolar bone defect in patients with cleft lip and palate. Scientific Reports (2023).
2. Predicting the eyebrow from the orbit using three-dimensional CT imaging in the application of forensic facial reconstruction and identification. Scientific Reports (2023).
3. Objective analysis of facial bone fracture CT images using curvature measurement in a surface mesh model. Scientific Reports (2023).
4. Post-Traumatic Trigeminal Neuropathic Pain: A Narrative Review of Understanding, Management, and Prognosis. Biomedicines (2024).
5. Decellularized allografts as an alternative for reconstruction of large inferior alveolar nerve defects: a systematic review. Medicina Oral Patología Oral y Cirugia Bucal (2023).
6. Historical Overview of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.