THREE DIMENSIONAL ASSESSMENT OF MOVEMENT OF SKELETALLY ANCHORED MOLARS DURING LEVELING AND ALIGNMENT STAGE OF FIXED ORTHODONTIC MECHANOTHERAPY

Abstract

Introduction- Alignment and leveling has been dene as “The tooth movement needed to achieve passive engagement of a plain arch wire of 0.019x0.025 dimension having standard arch form in to a correctly placed 0.022˝ bracket system.''Anchorage is an important consideration in the alignment and leveling stage of orthodontic treatment. Loss of anchorage during this stage is to be considered in the three planes of space. Aims and objectives - Three dimensional assessment of the position of skeletally anchored rst molar teeth and three dimensional assessment of the position of rst molar teeth anchored with conventional trans palatal arch using lateral cephalogram and study models, at the end of leveling and alignment stage of xed orthodontic mechanotherapy and its comparison with pretreatment position.Utimately to nd out by comparing the above measurements whether skeletally anchored molars offer more anchorage than molars anchored with conventional transpalatal arches. Materials and methods- These 30 patients were asked to participate in this study out of which 20 consented. All pre-treatment(T ) patient records were made: o study models, standard lateral cephalograms (Satlec – Pano D), extra oral and intra oral photograph. Miniscrew anchored transpalatalarch (MATPA) was placed in 12 patients(group I) and conventional transpalatal arch in 8 patients (group II). 0.022” stainless steel M.B.T. prescription brackets and tubes ( Nu- Edge, TP Orthodontics) were used and treatment mechanics described by Mc. Laughin, Bennet and Trevisi were followed in all patients. Result - This study attempted a 3-dimensional assessment of molar movement during alignment and leveling stage. The mini screw anchored trans palatal arch (MATPA) was found to offered better anchorage than the conventional trans palatal arch (TPA) .In the sagittal plane angular and linear measurements were found to have signicantly changed after leveling and alignment for conventional TPA group whereas no signicant difference were found in MATPA group. In the vertical plane, the perpendicular distance of the mesiobuccal cusp tip to the platal plane was found to be signicantly changed in conventional TPA group whereas no signicant change was measured in MATPA group. ConclusionMiniscrew anchored trans palatal arch offered better anchorage control of maxillary rst molar teeth in sagittal, vertical and transverse plane, during the leveling & alignment stage of xed orthodontic mechanotherapy, when compared with conventional trans palatal arch.