A preliminary study on the radiomic assessment of the surrounding trabecular bone microenvironment in taurodontism: Is it more than a dental anomaly?

BACKGROUND

To investigate whether taurodontism is associated with localized alterations in the surrounding trabecular bone microenvironment using quantitative radiomic analysis of panoramic radiographs in children.

METHODS

Panoramic radiographs of 24 children (6 taurodontism cases; 18 age-matched controls) were retrospectively evaluated. Due to incomplete root development, severity was qualitatively assessed via Shaw's criteria. Trabecular bone was analyzed across four topographic regions (interradicular epicenter, mesial apex, distal apex, and gonial angle) using Image Biomarker Standardisation Initiative (IBSI)-compliant 3D Slicer. Diagnostic performance was preliminarily evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.

RESULTS

Radiomic alterations demonstrated a distinct spatial gradient, with the most pronounced differences localized to the interradicular region and progressively diminishing toward the mesial, distal, and gonial regions. Four higher-order radiomic features showed significant discriminatory performance in the interradicular regions of interest (ROI) (all p < 0.05). GLSZM_ZoneVariance achieved the highest diagnostic accuracy (AUC = 0.824; 95% CI: 0.617-0.948), with 100.0% sensitivity and 72.2% specificity, followed by GLSZM_ZoneEntropy (AUC = 0.815).

CONCLUSION

This proof-of-concept study provides preliminary evidence that taurodontism is associated with localized radiomic alterations in the surrounding trabecular bone microenvironment, particularly within the interradicular region. These findings suggest that quantitative radiomic analysis of routinely acquired panoramic radiographs may provide complementary imaging features for investigating developmental dental phenotypes. Further prospective multicenter studies with external validation are required to confirm the biological and clinical significance of these observations.