PONE-D-21-39647

Artificial intelligence-designed single tooth dental prostheses: a protocol

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lam,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Gaetano Isola, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Additional Editor Comments:

In view of the negative comments raised by the reviewers, the manuscript cannot be accepted in its current form.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions?

The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses?

The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable?

Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Some recommendations follow after reading the authors' manuscript with great interest.

The title should mention "posterior" or "molar" tooth.

It should also be mentioned what type of study this protocol is.

It could mention that the teeth movement during MIP (due to PDL compression) was not considered.

In the inclusion criteria, it is better to refer to the "functional occlusal units" as defined by Kyser instead of the occluding pairs.

Static occlusal morphology is not in a satisfactory term. Static dental occlusion could be correct. Consider mentioning it as MIP or centric occlusion.

Consideri citing the following references to support your work:

- Piedra-Cascón W, Hsu VT, Revilla-León M. Facially driven digital diagnostic waxing: New software features to simulate and define restorative outcomes. Current Oral Health Reports. 2019;6(4):284-94.

- Revilla-León M, Gómez-Polo M, Vyas S, Barmak BA, Gallucci GO, Att W, Özcan M, Krishnamurthy VR. Artificial intelligence models for tooth-supported fixed and removable prosthodontics: A systematic review. J Prosthet Dent. 2021 Jul 16:S0022-3913(21)00309-7.

- Revilla-León M, Gómez-Polo M, Vyas S, Barmak BA, Galluci GO, Att W, Krishnamurthy VR. Artificial intelligence applications in implant dentistry: A systematic review. J Prosthet Dent. 2021 Jun 15:S0022-3913(21)00272-9.

- Hasanzade M, Aminikhah M, Afrashtehfar KI, Alikhasi M. Marginal and internal adaptation of single crowns and fixed dental prostheses by using digital and conventional workflows: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Prosthet Dent. 2021 Sep;126(3):360-368.

- Afrashtehfar KI, Ahmadi M, Emami E, Abi-Nader S, Tamimi F. Failure of single-unit restorations on root filled posterior teeth: a systematic review. Int Endod J. 2017 Oct;50(10):951-966.

Reviewer #2: The idea of the research has potential to lead to a new era of digital dentistry applications. however the described methods are weak and seems insufficient to be further evaluated

Reviewer #3: Well written protocol that will be assessed the most important topic. Methodology is reasonable. But authors should clarify how they determine the sample size.

Reviewer #4: Dear Authors,

The aim of this protocol to develop AI model to design dental prosthesis. While the protocol is helpful for future dentists, some concerns were raised. Revise the manuscript by following comments.

Major points

Figure 2 is not readable.

Some of details are lacking. Specification of high-performance computer, voxel size, and image size. I also could not find such information from supplemental.

Best fit superimposition is a function implemented on the software. But, it was black box.

Any references for VoxNex, GVCNN, PointNet++, and FusionNEt?

Minor points

3D should be spelled out at the first use.

As for the sample size, 1000 cases? or 1000 images?

No figure legend? Even in the supplemental.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

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Artificial intelligence-designed single molar dental prostheses: a protocol of prospective experimental study

PONE-D-21-39647R1

Dear Dr. Lam,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Gaetano Isola, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions?

The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses?

The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable?

Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The Reviewer #1 is pleased with the authors’ corrected version of their protocol manuscript.

There are no additional comments.

Reviewer #3: Authors addressed appropriately my comments

Reviewer #4: Dear Authors,

The manuscript was well revised according to the reviewer's comments. Thanks for your effort.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Kelvin I. Afrashtehfar

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No