Ponsford Mitchell W, Stella John P
Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health, Mesa, AZ, USA.
J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2013 Jan;71(1):110-27. doi: 10.1016/j.joms.2012.03.033. Epub 2012 Jun 20.
Posterior open bites can result from several causes: trauma, degenerative changes, tongue thrust habits, single-tooth ankylosis, multiple-tooth ankylosis, and/or condylar hyperplasia. Occasionally, posterior open bites are secondary to a combination of condylar hyperplasia and dental ankylosis, which can be difficult to diagnose and treat because of the large array of causative problems.
This article presents 2 unusual cases of posterior open bite secondary to multiple etiologies in adolescent male patients. A useful method of algorithmic diagnosis, treatment, and protocol is presented that was used for these cases.
The 2 cases were successfully diagnosed and treated using the formulated algorithm for posterior open bites.
The algorithms presented facilitate the differential diagnosis of posterior open bites with ambiguous etiology.
