Success and failure of banding and bonding. A clinical study.

A clinical study on the failure rate of 882 bands and 1194 directly bonded brackets placed on the teeth of 100 consecutively completed orthodontic patients treated with the Begg light wire technique showed an overall adhesion failure rate of 4.7%. This was significantly lower than the 7% recorded in a comparable study by Mizrahi in 1979 using only bands. The reduction was due primarily to a much lower failure rate of directly bonded brackets compared to bands on the maxillary cuspids and incisors. These results indicate that the lowest attachment failure rate during orthodontic treatment can be achieved by using bands on molars and bicuspids, directly bonded brackets on maxillary cuspids and incisors, and either on lower anterior teeth.