ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Dent. Med.
Sec. Systems Integration
This article is part of the Research TopicCutting-Edge Technologies in Digital DentistryView all 9 articles
Structured Reporting Enhances Diagnostic Quality in Periapical Dental Radiographs: A Comparative Evaluation
Provisionally accepted
Moritz Ludwig Schnitzer1*
Anna-Lisa Forster1Gloria Biechele1Felix L. Herr1Christian Dascalescu1
Maurice Heimer1Ricarda Ebner1Viktoria Fusch1Matthias Frank Frölich2Tobias Graf3
Johannes Rübenthaler1
Thomas Geyer1- 1LMU Munich University Hospital, Munich, Germany
- 2Universitatsklinikum Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
- 3Universitatsklinikum Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
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Background: Radiological reports are critical for accurate diagnosis and therapeutic decision-making. While narrative free-text reports remain the conventional standard in dental radiology, structured reporting has emerged as a promising approach to enhance report quality, consistency, and clinical relevance. This study aims to assess whether structured reporting provides measurable advantages over traditional narrative reports in the interpretation of dental radiographs. Materials and Methods: A total of 50 randomly selected narrative reports of intraoral dental radiographs were retrospectively analyzed. Using a standardized template, corresponding structured reports were created for each case. Two independent dentists evaluated the reports using a detailed questionnaire, comparing both formats across nine parameters: therapeutic decision-making, completeness, information extraction, level of detail, logical sequence, trustworthiness, linguistic quality, clarity, and overall assessment. Results: Structured reports showed significantly higher ratings in terms of completeness, information extraction, detail, trust, linguistic quality, clarity, and overall evaluation (p < 0.001). No significant differences were observed between structured and narrative reports regarding therapeutic decision-making or the sufficiency of information for treatment planning. Conclusion: Structured reporting in dental radiology demonstrates clear benefits in report clarity, quality, and interpretive utility. Although its impact on clinical decision-making may be equivalent to narrative reports, its consistent structure offers valuable advantages for communication, documentation, and future integration with clinical decision support systems.
Keywords: Structured Reporting1, Periapical Radiographs2, Dental Diagnostics3, RadiographicInterpretation4, Clinical Documentation5, Free-Text Reports6
Received: 30 Aug 2025; Accepted: 15 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Schnitzer, Forster, Biechele, Herr, Dascalescu, Heimer, Ebner, Fusch, Frölich, Graf, Rübenthaler and Geyer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Moritz Ludwig Schnitzer
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