Automated calculation of ontology-based planning proposals: An application in reconstructive oral and maxillofacial surgery

Structured modelling of surgical knowledge and its automated processing is still challenging. The aim of this work is to introduce a novel approach for automated calculation of ontology-based planning proposals in mandibular reconstruction and conduct a feasibility study. The presented approach is composed of an RDF(S) ontology, a 3D mandible template and a calculator-optimiser algorithm to automatically calculate reconstruction proposals with fibula grafts. To validate the viability of the approach, a feasibility study was conducted on 164 simulated mandibular reconstructions. The ontology defines 244 different reconstruction variants and 80 analyses for optimization. In 146 simulated cases, a proposal could be automatically calculated (average time 8.79 ± 4.03 s). The assessments of the proposals by three clinical experts indicate the viability of the approach. Due to the modular separation between computational logic and domain knowledge, the developed concepts can be easily maintained, reused and adapted for other applications.