AssistDent® Next Generation AI
Preventive Dental Software

AssistDent® Next Generation AI Preventive Dental Software

Powerful AI assisted image analysis to help dentists improve patients’ oral health by identifying dental decay sooner, particularly enamel-only proximal caries.

A Brief History of Manchester Imaging Limited

Manchester Imaging Limited is a spin-out company from Manchester University’s School of Dentistry and Faculty of Imaging Sciences. The company was established in 2014.

These two parts of the University entered into a joint collaboration to create technology that would help preventive dentistry. In particular, their energies were focused on the development of Artificial Intelligence software.

“Poor oral health is almost entirely preventable…
yet oral health remains a significant public health problem in England”

Government Report on Oral Health, March 2021

The poor oral health identified by the Government is the issue that AssistDent® has been developed to address.

It does this by using Artificial Intelligence to aid the clinical judgement of dentists when they are looking for the presence of early-stage proximal caries by examining bitewing radiographs – not at all an easy task.

The patterns are hard to spot and are frequently missed. If identified early enough, the disease can be reversed by non-invasive means – but all too often the moment passes, the presence goes undetected and an opportunity for preventive dentistry is lost.

Click arrows to see AssistDent in action
AssistDent Drag and Drop Functionality
AssistDent Labels and Grades
AssistDent Helpful Magnifier
AssistDent Moving Regions Of Interest
AssistDent Analysis with Overlays Descriptions
AssistDent Easy Selection Functions
AssistDent Analysis Diagnostic Complete for Export

Click arrows to see AssistDent in action
AssistDent Drag and Drop Functionality
AssistDent Labels and Grades
AssistDent Helpful Magnifier
AssistDent Moving Regions Of Interest
AssistDent Analysis with Overlays Descriptions
AssistDent Easy Selection Functions
AssistDent Analysis Diagnostic Complete for Export

AssistDent Incorporates Algorithms Drawn
from Three Key Technologies

AssistDent® is the company’s first commercial product and was launched in 2019. It is being used by Community Dentists to help them find early signs of tooth decay and by University Dental Schools to train Dental Students.

Today Manchester Imaging has a proven track record of designing, developing and deploying AI systems for dental image analysis. These incorporate algorithms drawn from the fields of computer vision, machine learning and neural networks.

Manchester Imaging’s expertise includes producing integrated AI and user-interface solutions that aid both Dentists and Dental Students. The most recent AI technical pipelines, now available via AssistDent, focus on the challenging task of improving the accuracy of assessments conducted by dentists and dental students alike when analysing bitewing radiographs for early stage decay diagnosis.

AssistDent® ADEPT Study

The views of Professor Hugh Devlin and Professor Keith Horner

Medical Device Classification and Declaration of Conformity

We hereby declare that the above-mentioned products meet the provisions of the United Kingdom Medical Devices Regulations 2002 as they apply in Great Britain (SI 2002 No 618, as amended).

According to MEDDEV 2.4/1 rev.9, Classification of medical devices, Rule 12, this stand-alone software is a Class I medical device (without measuring function).

According to MEDDEV 2.1.6 Qualification & classification of standalone Software, this is stand-alone software (reference page 7, paragraph 2.1).

According to EN62304, specifically the flowchart in section 4.3, this stand-alone software is safety class A.

Intended Use

AssistDent is an aid in the diagnosis of proximal surface caries; carious lesions that are present in the enamel and carious lesions that have penetrated into the dentine. It is not intended for primary diagnosis but is to be used as an adjunct to the dentist’s conventional sources of diagnostic information. It is designed to assist dentists to detect carious lesions that are difficult to detect or would require significant effort to identify. The final diagnostic decision rests with the dentist.

Indications for Use

Users

The use of this product to analyse patient data is restricted to qualified dentists, dental therapists and dental hygienists, regulated by the statutory regulatory bodies to prescribe radiographs, take them, process and interpret them for dental caries.

Patients

Patients, on whose images the product is applied, are restricted to adults attending their dentist for a dental examination and who receive digital intra-oral radiographs as part of their examination procedure.

Contraindications

The product should not be used to analyse primary teeth. The product should not be used to analyse images other than those intended to detect dental caries.

Warnings and Precautions

AssistDent is an advisory tool. AssistDent does not provide a definitive diagnosis of caries or tooth identification, rather it alerts the dentist to suspicious regions. Inspecting the regions of interest highlighted by AssistDent can be used as one element of the overall clinical information gathered when making a decision to diagnose caries.

The software may highlight regions that are not caries, and it is the dentist’s final decision whether these should be investigated further. AssistDent is not guaranteed to find all caries. It is the responsibility of the dentist to investigate areas where no regions of interest are highlighted. The software may mislabel teeth and it is the dentist’s duty to verify that the correct teeth are treated.

Angel Investors

The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and The University of Manchester, the company has strong financial backing from institutional investors Mercia Asset Management and Catapult Ventures.

AssistDent® is a registered trademark of Manchester Imaging Limited in Australia, Canada, European Union, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States of America.