Photography-based Dental Plaque Detection and Report Generation among Preschool Children using PlaqueSAM

Photography-based Dental Plaque Detection and Report Generation among Preschool Children using PlaqueSAM | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Photography-based Dental Plaque Detection and Report Generation among Preschool Children using PlaqueSAM Jing Hao, Kaixin Guo, Zhiyi Shan, Yanqi Yang, James Kit-Hon Tsoi, and 2 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9027573/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 7 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Dental plaque is the primary etiological factor for common oral diseases such as dental caries and gingivitis, particularly affecting susceptible populations including children. Preventing plaque-induced dental diseases in paediatric patients remains a global challenge as certain plaque regions are often missed during daily cleaning. Early detection and removal of plaque are essential but often difficult to achieve consistently. A routine monitoring tool that visualizes plaque accumulation on primary teeth could allow parents to actively track their children's oral health, enabling timely prevention and intervention for dental caries and periodontal diseases. Inspired by these, we present PlaqueSAM, an automatic plaque detection system using intraoral photographs captured by smartphones. By uploading six guided images assisted with alignment overlays, PlaqueSAM can generate a comprehensive plaque detection report with visual references. The PlaqueSAM was developed using 3,402 prospectively collected intraoral photographs from 567 preschool children across 11 kindergartens in Hong Kong using a three-stage training strategy based on a multi-task learning paradigm. The performance of PlaqueSAM was quantitatively evaluated on 81 children, achieving sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 76.58%, 82.47%, and 79.60%, respectively. This system demonstrates superior plaque detection capabilities without requiring disclosing agents or plastic retractors typically used by dental professionals, making it highly practical for home use to maintain oral hygiene and reduce the risk of common oral diseases. By enabling dynamic monitoring of daily plaque accumulation and cleaning, PlaqueSAM has significant potential to advance teledentistry, promoting children's oral health remotely, conveniently, and at lower cost. Health sciences/Diseases Health sciences/Health care Health sciences/Medical research Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files SupplementaryMaterialsSubmitted.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviews received at journal 03 Apr, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 16 Mar, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 12 Mar, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 11 Mar, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 09 Mar, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 09 Mar, 2026 First submitted to journal 04 Mar, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9027573","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":605303631,"identity":"3a300ac0-a72c-4b24-a023-8e0218845444","order_by":0,"name":"Jing Hao","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"The University of Hong Kong","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jing","middleName":"","lastName":"Hao","suffix":""},{"id":605303633,"identity":"337f793c-a8ef-4e9c-8ac3-77dec296834f","order_by":1,"name":"Kaixin Guo","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"The University of Hong 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