Long term skeletal and dental changes between tooth-anchored versus Dresden bone-anchored rapid maxillary expansion using CBCT images in adolescents: Randomized clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine long-term skeletal and dental changes in tooth-anchored versus Dresden bone-anchored rapid maxillary expansion using CBCT images in adolescents. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In all, 29 adolescent patients (11-17 years of age) needing skeletal expansion were randomly allocated to two different groups treated by either a Dresden bone-anchored expander or a conventional hyrax expander. Patients included did not have previous orthodontic treatment, were non-syndromic and had all teeth present in mouth. CBCT images were taken before expansion and two or more years after expansion. An independent T-test was used to determine the statistical significance between treatment groups and paired T-test was used to compare the results before and after expansion in each group. RESULTS: Neither treatment group showed overall long-term different skeletal and dental changes in the transverse, anterior-posterior and vertical planes (P<0.05). Both treatment groups showed mild asymmetric skeletal expansion, but these were clinically insignificant. CONCLUSIONS: Both expanders had similar skeletal and dental results. The greatest changes were in the transverse plane. Changes in vertical and anterior-posterior were negligible.