Clinical effects of different prescriptions on the inclination of maxillary and mandibular incisors by using passive self-ligating brackets.

OBJECTIVE

Controlling the incisal inclination is fundamental in orthodontics. However, the relationship between the inclination prescription and its clinical outcome is not obvious, and the incisal inclination changes generated by different bracket prescriptions were investigated.

METHODS

Twenty-eight non-extraction dental Class II patients (15 females, 13 males; mean age = 12.9) were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were treated using passive self-ligating fixed appliances with three inclination prescriptions for maxillary incisors (), and two for mandibular incisors (). Clinical outcomes were compared among different prescriptions, and regression analysis was used to explain the effects of bracket prescriptions and to understand the prescription selection criteria (α = 0.05).

RESULTS

For maxillary central incisors, and prescriptions were related to linguoversion ( = 0.046) and labioversion ( = 0.005), respectively, while prescription maintained the initial dental inclination. Maxillary lateral incisors did not show significant changes. For mandibular incisors, prescription led to linguoversion ( = 0.005 for central incisors, = 0.010 for lateral incisors), while prescription led to labioversion ( = 0.045 for central incisors, = 0.005 for lateral incisors). The factors affecting inclination changes were the imposed change and selected prescription, while prescription selection was influenced by the initial dental inclination and initial intercanine distance.

CONCLUSIONS

The direction of correction of incisal inclination can be controlled by choosing a certain prescription, but the final inclination may show limited consistency with it. The amount of imposed inclination change was the most relevant predictor of the clinical outcome.