Clinical study of surgically assisted rapid maxillary expansion

Yang, Chan Young; Min, Seung Ki; Oh, Sung Hwang; Kwon, Kyung Hwan; Lee, Jun; Cha, Jae Won

Abstract

Orthopedic rapid maxillary expansion(RME) has been a common treatment modality used to widen narrow maxillae in young children. However, since more skeletally matured adolescents or adults has closed midpalatal suture, the result of RME was undesirable because of dental tipping with little or no basal skeletal movement and resulted to many other complications. After such treatment, complications often occurred such as alveolar bending, compression of periodontal ligament, extrusion, buccal tipping, and severe relapse. Thus, surgically assisted rapid maxillary expansion(SA-RME) is required, especially for patients over 14 years old, to skeletally release maxillary expansion. We used two methods of maxillary expansion surgery. Surgically assisted rapid maxillary expansion(SA-RME) and surgically assisted posterior segmental expansion(SA-PSE) were used for narrow maxilla. The study was divided into two groups(SA-RME group and SA-PSE group). SA-RME group was consisted of 2 males and 4 females, and the ages of materials ranged from 15 years to 25 years with a mean of 20.2 years. SA-PSE group was consisted of 1 male and 5 females, and the ages ranged from 13 years to 23 years with a mean of 18.7 years. Dental study models were fabricated before starting the expansion and immediately after the expansion was completed. It was fabricated again 1 month later, 3 months later when the expansion device was removed, and 6 months later after the expansion was completed. A repeated measures analysis of variance(ANOVA) test was applied to assess changes between each groups over time. The amount of expansion and the amount of tipping movement each in both groups were compared by using paired t-test and it was also compared between each subjects within the group by using independent t-test. Both SA-RME and SA-PSE group showed stable results, but SA-PSE group showed statical significance in tipping movement of second premolar. We compared 6 patients who recieved SA-RME with 6 patients who received SA-PSE, and appraised the clinical usefulness.