Five-year treatment results with a headgear-activator combination

Abstract

Twenty-three actively growing patients with Class II, division 1 malocclusions were treated with a combination headgear-activator. With this appliance forward and downward growth of the maxillary complex may be decreased while mandibular growth is allowed to continue. Lateral cephalograms were taken at the beginning of treatment, at the end of the active treatment period, and five years later. The cephalograms were evaluated to determine short and long term treatment effects. At the end of active treatment (4 to 26.6 months; mean 9.6 months), overjet and convexity were decreased in all patients. The five-year, post-treatment cephalograms indicated relapse of the Class II, division 1 malocclusion in 4 patients (17%), and maintenance of the correction in 19 patients (83%). The treatment results appeared to be related to rotation of the y-axis. Patients with relapse demonstrated posterior rotation of the y-axis during and after treatment, while patients with mandibular incisor crowding, showed anterior rotation of the y-axis during and after treatment. The direction of rotation of the y-axis did not change in any of the patients when treatment and post-treatment periods were compared.