# Prediction of Lower Third Molar Eruption in Panoramic Radiography Using Artificial Intelligence (AI): PDApp

**Authors:** Susana Santeiro-Hermida, Manuel Fernández-Delgado, Eva Cernadas, Paz Otero-Casal, Mercedes Gallas-Torreira

PMC · DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics16040516 · 2026-02-09

## TL;DR

This paper introduces PDApp, an AI tool that accurately predicts the eruption of lower third molars using panoramic radiographs.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is the development and validation of PDApp for preoperative third molar eruption prediction.

## Key findings

- PDApp was trained and validated using 383 panoramic radiographies of mandibular third molars.
- The software achieved the highest performance metrics for eruption prediction compared to clinical methods.

## Abstract

Background/Objective: Preoperative prediction of third molar eruption with artificial intelligence (AI) has been a challenge in dentistry and oral surgery. Methods: In this investigation, we used machine learning (ML) algorithms to characterize M3 panoramic radiological images for the preoperative differential diagnosis of third nolar eruption/retention and compared them with clibical explorations to validate their performance. Results: We retrospectively collected data of patients with mandibular thid molar retention, where all eruption diagnoses were confirmed via clinical exploration. A total of 383 panoramic radiographies were selected to train the PDApp software for eruption diagnosis for the software validation. Conclusions: The PDApp software achieved the highest performance metrics for the prediction of mandibular third molar eruption

## Full-text entities

- **Diseases:** molar eruption (MESH:D006828), mandibular third molar eruption (MESH:D008336), injury to (MESH:D014947), Third Molar Eruption (MESH:D000848), PDApp (MESH:D009057), eruption (MESH:D003875), RRC (MESH:D016055), Cos eruptheta (MESH:D060085)
- **Species:** Homo sapiens (human, species) [taxon 9606]

## Figures

4 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12939572/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12939572