Dr. Björn Ludwig

Abstract. Management of skeletal discrepancies in growing patients: open bite, crossbite and Class III- just wishful thinking?

In the last ten years there has been an innovation flood in orthodontics. In addition to skeletal anchorage, different lingual and self-ligating bracket systems, aligners and various 3D technologies were euphorically advertised.
So certainly the impression could be given that sophisticated skeletal anomalies can now be treated easily and even growth could be dramatically modified. Is this really true? Is there any evidence for this or are we forgetting basic/classical and often very economical knowledge which has existed for decades? The discussion will be illustrated with clinical examples and evidence based literature reviews and finally try to combine high- tech with tradition.
Beside open bite treatment this lecture will especially include a critical clinical and scientific discussion on crossbite and class III treatment and how to implement this in daily routine practice. 3D studies about their effectiveness will be shown and compared to the current and evidence based literature. Several selected case reports will demonstrate the most important clinical recommendations in order to use these mostly bone born techniques successfully. We need realistic expectations instead of wishful thinking!

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