Usefulness of moire topography in examining the jaw position in children

Abstract

The expansion of the median palatine suture is often performed in pediatric orthodontic treatment guiding occlusal development. However, inadequate preoperative examination of the jaw position and symmetry may lead to misalignment of the dental arch and the median palatine suture, which may cause significant facial asymmetry in the future. Therefore, preoperative examination of the jaw position is important. Although a jaw movement measuring device can be used to examine the jaw position, due to the mismatch between the size of the ear rods and the child's ears and lack of understanding on the patientʼs part, the reliability of the results may be questionable. As such, there is a need for a more convenient method to examine the jaw position during lateral expansion and periodic follow-up after surgery. In this report discussed are cases of a 7-year and 4-month-old girl and a 7-year and 6-month-old girl, who came to the clinic for non-extraction treatment and were subsequently treated with stabilization splinting, which is Koide's technique, because of suspected misalignment of the jaw position at pre-expansion. And as a more simple and more reliable examination method, moire topography (KDD KD-Z for whole body) was employed. Further, the periodic evaluation using moire topography over the period of growth observation follow-up was performed to promote dentition and jawbone growth as symmetrical as possible, which altogether lead to good results and patient satisfaction.