Harnessing the Power of Artificial Intelligence to Teach Cleft Lip Surgery.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) leverages today's exceptional computational powers and algorithmic abilities to learn from large data sets and solve complex problems. The aim of this study was to construct an AI model that can intelligently and reliably recognize the anatomy of cleft lip and nasal deformity and automate placement of nasolabial markings that can guide surgical design.

Methods: We adopted the high-resolution net architecture, a recent family of convolutional neural networks-based deep learning architecture specialized in computer-vision tasks to train an AI model, which can detect and place the 21 cleft anthropometric points on cleft lip photographs and videos.