Effects of Functional Appliance Therapy on the Depth of the Pharyngeal Airways: Activator vs. Forsus

Abstract

The sample consisted of 25 adolescents (14 boys and 11 girls, average age 11 years 8 months), whose lateral cephalograms taken before (T 1 ) and after the treatment (T 2 ) with functional appliances (total 50) were collected. The lateral cephalometric radiographs were compiled from their clinical records kept at Research Article AbstractAims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in Dento-skeletal components following orthopedic therapy of Class II skeletal malocclusions, and to assess the effect of these changes on the depth of the pharyngeal airways, after treatment with removable and fixed functional appliances.Methodology: 25 adolescents (14 boys and 11 girls, mean age 11.67 years) were chosen. The subjects were divided into two groups according to the treatment type: removable appliance group (13 subjects, 7 boys and 6 girls, mean age 12 years) and fixed appliance group (12 subjects, 7 boys and 5 girls, mean age 11.33 years). Lateral cephalometric radiographs taken before (T1) and after the treatments (T2) were digitally analyzed. Paired t-test was used to determine the possible statistically significant changes (T2-T1) for both groups. Identified differences between the groups were further analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U-test at the 95% confidence interval (P <.05).Results: Functional appliance therapy showed no statistically significant changes in upper pharyngeal airway depth (UPAD) and middle pharyngeal airway depth (MPAD). Only the lower pharyngeal airway depth (LPAD) was increased significantly (P<.05) due to the forward positioning of the mandible, determined by significant increase in SNB, ANB, and Pog to N perp. Intergroup comparisons showed no statistically significant differences between removable and fixed appliances (P >.05). Conclusion:Positive sagittal mandibular change, as a result of both types of functional appliances therapy, had a significant increase on the depth of the lower pharyngeal airway. The sample was then divided into two groups. The first group consisted of the subjects who were treated with removable functional appliances (Activator type), and the second group consisted of those who were treated with fixed functional appliances, Forsus Fatigue Resistant Device (FRD) (3M Unitek Corp, Monrovia, Calif).The sex and age distribution of the treatment groups are shown in Table 1. Although chronological ages appear different between groups, growth stages were closely matched according to cervical vertebra maturation (CVM) assessment on lateral cephalograms. Keywords:The removable appliance group comprised of 13 subjects (7 boys and 6 girls, mean age 12 years), with the duration of treatment ranging from 6 to 15 months with an average of 11.6 months.The activator appliance used was an acrylic monobloc with clasps used to fixate the appliance to the upper first molars. The appliance was produced from a construction bite that positioned the mandible anteriorly in an edge-to-edge incisal relationship. The lower jaw was postured forward in a Class I or overcorrected Class I ...

Evaluation of effect of PowerScopeTM class II corrector on skeletal, dental and Oro-pharyngeal airway dimension in Skeletal class II cases - A controlled prospective clinical study

“…In this study, upper incisors did not show any changes in both groups. This was accordance with previous study 13 but against other studies, where investigators claim that upper incisors tip lingually by appliance. 11,15 Experimental group showed highly significant proclined and protruded lower incisors after treatment and decrease in overjet.…”

“…[8][9][10][11][12][13] where as mandible was positioned anteriorly lead to decrease in maxilla-mandibular discrepancy. These observation were in accordance with the previous studied [9][10][11][12][13] where as these changes were insignificant on comparison with control group indicating that PowerScope TM Class II Corrector appliance has no effects on both maxilla and mandible.This finding is in accordance with previous study 8 Vertical facial height showed statistically insignificant. This result was in agreement with other previous studies.…”

Tratamiento exitoso con activador funcional removible en paciente clase II esqueletal con mordida en tijera, después del peak de crecimiento puberal: caso y revisión de la literatura

“…Se observó una diferencia en la longitud mandibular de 1,53 mm en pacientes tratados con AF removibles en comparación con el grupo no tratado (16) .Se ha reportado que el AF Sander Bite Jumping produce un mayor aumento de la longitud mandibular (3,40 mm), seguido en orden decreciente por Twin Block, Bionator, Harvold Activator y Fränkel (16) . Sin embargo, otros autores no han mostrado cambios en el crecimiento mandibular (17,18) . De la misma manera, no hay consenso sobre los efectos de los AF en el crecimiento mandibular (16,18) También hay diferentes maneras de medir los cambios en el crecimiento mandibular (16) .…”

“…Existen reportes que comparan resultados usando AF fijos y AF removibles. Así, Taki y Ghaffarpasand (17) no encontraron cambios significativos en cuanto a crecimiento o posición maxilar para ambos grupos (AF fijos y removibles). También observaron que la posición mandibular avanzó significativa y favorablemente en ambos grupos.…”

“…También observaron que la posición mandibular avanzó significativa y favorablemente en ambos grupos. (17) . Observaron también aumento de vías respiratorias inferiores significativos y favorables, con el uso de AF removibles y AF fijos (17) .…”