A Comparison of the Periodontal Health of Patients during Treatment with the Invisalign® System and with Fixed Lingual Appliances

Abstract

Although all the teeth and parts of the keratinized gingiva are covered nearly all day during Invisalign treatment, the periodontal risk is lower than that associated with fixed lingual appliances. This may be due to the fact that aligners are removable, permitting unimpeded oral hygiene. In contrast, the lingual tooth surfaces are very difficult to clean when fitted with a fixed appliance.

Halitosis, Oral Health and Quality of Life during Treatment with Invisalign® and the Effect of a Low-dose Chlorhexidine Solution

“…Nevertheless, an improvement in the mean gingival index from 0.04 to 0.000 was described. These values are very low in comparison with studies by the groups of Miethke et al [25,26] T3 0 20 5 6 0 T4 0 24 3 4 0 T6 0 24 7 0 0 T8 0 27 4 0 0 Insecurity T3 0 17 10 4 0 T4 0 19 10 2 0 T6 0 19 12 0 0 T8 0 25 6 0 0 Table 8b. Pain, shyness and insecurity experienced during treatment with Invisalign® at four control visits (T3, T4, T6 and T8).…”

“…Hierfür wurden Durchschnittswerte je Untersuchungszeitpunkt gebildet [25,26]. Zum ersten und fünften Untersuchungszeitpunkt, also jeweils zu Beginn einer Periode, erfolgte zudem eine professionelle Zahnreinigung.…”

“…Mean values per control visit were calculated for these indices [25,26]. Professional tooth cleaning was carried out at the first and fifth control visit, in other words at the start of each treatment period.…”

“…Align Technology has brought Kesling's approach into the modern age by combining it with innovative CAD-CAM technologies and special laboratory techniques [13]. As the Invisalign ® splints ( = aligners) are supposed to be worn for 20-22 hours a day, if possible, and therefore lie on the marginal parts of the attached gingiva for a very long period of time, the resulting potential risks to periodontal and oral health have already been investigated in previous studies [25,26].…”

“…Align Technology führte Keslings Ansatz in Kombination innovativer CAD-CAMTechnologien und spezieller Labortechniken in die moderne Zeit ein [13]. Da die Invisalign ® -Schienen ( = Aligner) nach Möglichkeit 20-22 Stunden getragen werden sollen und somit einen sehr langen Zeitraum den marginalen Anteilen der Gingiva propria aufliegen, wurden in der Vergangenheit bereits durch Pilotstudien das daraus resultierende potentielle parodontale Risiko und die Mundgesundheit untersucht [25,26].…”