Several reports of successful treatment of anterior open bite with aligners have recently been published. This new paper sheds some light on how this is achieved. We all know that treating anterior open bites (AOBs) can be quite challenging. Even when treatment successfully corrects AOBs, there is a high chance of relapse. Traditionally, our treatment involves intruding molars and avoiding extrusion of the incisors to prevent instability. Alternatively, we can do Orthognathic surgery, but this comes with risk. Recently, a new study has suggested that using aligners with posterior intrusion may ..read more

Some orthodontists advocate orthodontic treatment for the management of child breathing problems. They have enthusiastically promoted this idea through conferences and social media. Unfortunately, many of their claims regarding the effects of orthodontic treatment have been quite extreme. Importantly, this group tends to instigate debates through social media and conferences rather than critically evaluating the literature, which raises concerns about their claims’ validity. Additionally, they tend to heavily promote any low-quality studies that yield favourable results. While we may find reas ..read more

Occasionally, a journal publishes a paper that will likely be recognised as a “Classic.” This UK-based team has done an excellent trial examining the effectiveness of bone-anchored protraction treatment. Importantly they report outcomes relevant to both clinicians and our patients. This research also shows that it is possible to carry out a low-cost, long-term study.  I cannot praise this team enough. Padhraig Fleming has provided us with this summary post about this study. Class III Correction: A Bump from BAMP? We have had a wealth of research examining our ability to modify growth ..read more

Rarely, a research paper is published that makes me think about the findings and holds great value for clinicians and researchers. If you are a clinician who takes research seriously, please read this post, as it is highly relevant to our specialty. Orthodontic research must reflect outcomes that are meaningful for our patients. Failing to do so could result in us overlooking the important impacts of our treatments, which would impede the growth of our knowledge. For this simple reason, we need to identify differences in outcomes that are significant to patients. This was the main focus of the ..read more

After my previous post about the high failure rates of bonded retainers in clinical trials, I contacted Simon Littlewood, an expert in retention and trials, to provide some insight on this issue. He has kindly shared a detailed explanation in this guest post. Clinical experience v Research findings Have you ever read research and thought, “That’s not my clinical experience”? That is something that certainly happens to me when reading research showing higher-than-expected failure rates of bonded retainers. And what makes it worse is that some of that research is from studies that I ha ..read more

The choice of archwire is important when we plan initial alignment. A recent Cochrane review, while informative, left a gap in our understanding of the most efficient archwire width. This new trial aims to fill that gap in our knowledge of aligning archwires. My first trial looked at the effectiveness of different types of aligning archwires. We did not really know how to do trials and had to use a book to help us with the methods. It was a real surprise that we managed to finish this study.  It is nice to see that authors still quote this paper. But it was full of bias and mistakes ..read more

Many researchers are doing trials to determine the effectiveness of expansion appliances for correcting crossbites. This research is timely as expansion seems to be becoming a popular treatment method. Furthermore, many methods of expanding arches now carry different levels of risk and treatment burden.   With this explosion of interest in expansion, we must base our treatment decisions on high-quality data. It is reassuring that investigators have done several trials into expansion.  This new study adds to our knowledge. A team based in Sweden did this study. The Angle Ort ..read more

This post is by Padhraig Fleming. He discusses a new paper examining the radiation exposure and risk of orthodontic radiographs. There is much discussion and uncertainty concerning the appropriate number and type of radiographs that our patients undergo. Having been trained in the U.K., I am a big fan of the British Orthodontic Society guidelines on this. They are now getting a little ‘mature’, and it would be great to see these updated to better reflect the available techniques and changes in radiation dosimetry.  One of our concerns is, of course, ensuring that we do not over-expose our ..read more

You might be wondering about the topic of my post. Recently, I read an interesting blog post about a new research paper that proposes a connection between microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs) and cardiovascular health issues. This made me think about whether plastic clear aligners could contribute to this problem. Let’s start by looking at the original paper and the blog post.  Several Facebook posts pointed out the blog post on the excellent Ground Truths blog site.  This is my interpretation of the paper. A team based in Italy did the study. The New England Journal of Medicine pub ..read more

The debate on whether orthodontic treatment impacts the airway is ongoing. A vocal group claims that amputating teeth during orthodontic treatment can lead to airway problems. However, this claim has yet to be backed up by high-quality research. It is crucial to remain open-minded about the relationship between orthodontic treatment and airways until conclusive evidence exists. This new paper represents a positive step towards understanding this issue better. The theory suggests that extracting teeth for orthodontic purposes may cause airway issues. This is because retracting dental arches to ..read more