Long term skeletal and dental changes between tooth-anchored versus Dresden bone-anchored rapid maxillary expansion using CBCT images in adolescents: Randomized clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to determine long-term skeletal and dental changes in tooth-anchored versus Dresden bone-anchored rapid maxillary expansion using CBCT images in adolescents.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In all, 29 adolescent patients (11-17 years of age) needing skeletal expansion were randomly allocated to two different groups treated by either a Dresden bone-anchored expander or a conventional hyrax expander. Patients included did not have previous orthodontic treatment, were non-syndromic and had all teeth present in mouth. CBCT images were taken before expansion and two or more years after expansion. An independent T-test was used to determine the statistical significance between treatment groups and paired T-test was used to compare the results before and after expansion in each group.

RESULTS

Neither treatment group showed overall long-term different skeletal and dental changes in the transverse, anterior-posterior and vertical planes (P<0.05). Both treatment groups showed mild asymmetric skeletal expansion, but these were clinically insignificant.

CONCLUSIONS

Both expanders had similar skeletal and dental results. The greatest changes were in the transverse plane. Changes in vertical and anterior-posterior were negligible.