Management of unilaterally deep impacted first, second, and third mandibular molars.

This is indeed a difficult and rare case of deeply impacted 1st mandibular molar, treated to a very satisfactory result, by finally uprighting the 2nd mandibular molar and extracting the 1st one. In addition one upper premolar on the same side was extracted in order to move the upper midline on to the facial.

Initial panoramic view

Rheumatology Journal, 50 volumes celebration, key articles free access.

The Rheumatology journal, from Oxford Press, is celebrating with the current issue 50 volumes of the journal. The journal has been around since 1952. You can read further at the editorial of the current issue.

The editors of the journal have chosen an interesting number of papers which are characterized as "key articles" and are given free access for readers interested. You can find the list here.

Among those articles, "A simplified disease activity index for rheumatoid arthritis for use in clinical practice"

For the orthodontic world, rheumatoid arthritis and especially juvenile idiopathic, is of major interest. Some of those young patients either with oligo- or poly-arthritis, systemic or not, can have their first symptoms at the TMJ and the dentist or orthodontist might be the one to suspect and help to the diagnosis of the disease.

As such those interested in the field could go through the articles that the experts are referring as key articles on the subject, for a quick overview and update of the current knowledge and treatment approach.

D.G.

Facial Reconstruction of an 11 year old female resident of Athens 430 BC, Angle Orthodontist, Jan 2011.

A relatively recent excavation at the site of Keramikos which was a burial ground for the ancient city of Athens, there was an interesting discovery that saw the light of dawn.
The skull at the picture on the left is of a female speculated to be around the age of 11 years. The skull dates back to 430 BC, when during the Peloponnessian war and the siege of Spartans to Athens, there was a large plague, that killed several athenians.
The skull provides clues of that period concerning the plague. Also suprisingly well preserved is the dentition of this young girl. All teeth of the upper and lower jaw are completelly intact and as such this archeological finding is of major interest to the dental scientific world.


The girl was given the name Myrtis by the archeologists.


At http://www.myrtis.gr/ you can find a lot of information also in english about this finding, but please note that the website is still under construction.


Two publications among others that are of orthodontic relevance are made at the Angle Orthodontist journal. Both of them are with a free access pdf file for anyone interested to download. Corresponding author of both articles is Dr Pagrigorakis MJ.

• Dental status and orthodontic treatment needs of an 11-year-old female resident of Athens, 430 BC, AngO Jan 2008
• Facial reconstruction of an 11-year-old female resident of 430 BC Athens. AngO Jan 2011

Distally displaced premolars: A dental anomaly associated with palatally displaced canines, AmJO-DO Sept 2010

Dr Tiziano Baccetti, of Florence Italy, is one of the not so many, clinicians and researchers, that thrive to finding useful clinical tools for diagnosis. One of them is the widelly used cervical vertebrae maturation stage. The CVS as it is called, is a method of assesing where considering the growth spur, our orthodontic patients are, through the vertebrae that are visible on the lateral cephalogram, that we already have among our initial registrations.

Dr Baccetti comes with another suggestion, on the AmJO-DO of Sept 2010. The hypothesis of been able to early diagnose palatally displaced maxillary canines, from assessing the distal displacement of the second mandibular premolars. This is the link to the original article's abstract on the American Journal.

British Journal of Orthodontics Current Issue, Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Study

Article from the current issue of the British Journal 


Objective: To screen patients with oligoarticular and polyarticular forms of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) to determine (i) the severity of their class II skeletal pattern; (ii) temporomandibular joint signs and symptoms and (iii) use of systemic corticosteroids.


Subjects and setting: Sixty-eight children with JIA aged between 9 and 16 years old who were screened at four regional treatment centres in the UK.

Class II div 2 Deep Bite, Where is the Limit

Patient is 46 years old with a severe Skeletal class II div 2, with extremelly retroclined incisors as you can see from the above pictures.

With patients like this a question arises as to where is the limit is biomechanic and biologically wise. The aim in this case is to intrude and torque those four front teeth with the minimum overjet-proclination possible, unlocking the bite and giving room to the patient to protrude her dorsally forced mandible to a more relaxed position.

Primary Failure of Eruption (PFE)

This is a typical clinical picture of PFE, patient, affected unilaterally on the right side.

The teeth with PFE become ankylosed when orthodontic forces are applied.

The PFE was first described by WR Proffit in 1981, however the molecular basis of this was unknown up to today.