Orthosurgical Management of Class III Malocclusion Emphasizing the Pivotal Role of CBCT

Abstract

Management of skeletal class III malocclusions in a nongrowing individual remains a challenging and arduous task for the orthodontist. The skeletal class III malocclusion is often not amenable to camouflage procedures and requires a surgical correction of the underlying skeletal bases to achieve esthetic and functional treatment results. These patients often require one or more extractions to remove the preexisting dentoalveolar compensations prior to the surgical procedure which is undertaken as part of presurgical orthodontics. Postsurgical orthodontics is often of limited duration and is concerned with the settling of occlusion and obtaining tight cuspal interdigitation. Cone-beam computed tomography is a recent innovation which has revolutionized imaging in dentistry. Within orthodontics, it has proven to be of great value in orthosurgical planning and evaluation of posttreatment results including root parallelism and root resorption. This case report describes orthosurgical management of class III malocclusion utilizing cone-beam computed tomography in treatment planning.