A clinical evaluation of a locking orthodontic facebow.
Standard orthodontic facebows may accidentally detach from the appliance buccal tubes at night; this could reduce the effectiveness of extra oral traction and occasionally cause an injury. To try and prevent facebow detachment at night a facebow with a locking mechanism was introduced. This study assessed the ability of 706 consecutively treated patients to learn to wear and use this facebow. The facebows were fitted in 9 different practices supervised by 12 orthodontists. Data from the patients and orthodontists were collected over a 2-year period and covered approximately 166,550 nights. All the orthodontists were able to fit and adjust the facebow; a total of 697 patients successfully used the facebow. Accidental detachment of the facebow at night was reported to be less than 1%. This indicates a significant improvement in the safety of the facebow and should help to improve compliance by increasing the number of hours of wear achieved by the patients.
Samuels
R
R
Department of Orthodontics and Restorative Dentistry, The Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, UK. russell.samuels@glenfield-tr.trent.nhs.uk
O'Neill
J
J
Bhavra
G
G
Hills
D
D
Thomas
P
P
Hug
H
H
Brown
M
M
Haining
C
C
Stern
M
M
Di Biase
A
A
Straw
S
S
Hoyen-Chung
D
D
D000056:Accident Prevention; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D004868:Equipment Failure; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005115:Extraoral Traction Appliances / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000145:classification; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016382:Orthodontic Appliance Design; D017289:Orthodontic Appliances, Functional; D009968:Orthodontic Appliances, Removable; D010349:Patient Compliance; D012449:Safety; D013499:Surface Properties