Detecting the articular disk in magnetic resonance images of the temporomandibular joint using YOLO series

The purpose of this study was to construct an artificial intelligence object detection model to detect the articular disk from temporomandibular joint (TMJ) magnetic resonance (MR) images using YOLO series. The study included two experiments using datasets from different MR imaging machines. A total of 536 MR images were retrospectively examined. The performance of YOLOv5 and YOLOv8 in detecting the TMJ articular disk in both normal and displaced conditions was evaluated. The impact of image-processing techniques, such as histogram equalization (HE) and contrast-limited adaptive HE (CLAHE) on model performance, was also examined. The results showed that the YOLO series could detect the articular disk regardless of displacement, with superior performance on images of normal disk position. The results suggest the applicability of object detection models in improving the diagnosis of TMJ disorders.