Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

15ClinicalFebruary 7-13, 2011United Kingdom Edition T raditionally, cosmetic dentistry has always been faced with the challenge of treating poorly aligned teeth. Treatment options available for mildly and moderately crowded teeth include orthodontics and restorative dentistry. Many pa- tients have chosen the restora- tive approach, for example por- celain veneers, over orthodontic techniques because of longer treatment times combined with either unsightly labial wires and brackets or the expense of ‘invisible’ braces. In cases in which patients choose to have crowded upper and lower anterior teeth treated with veneers, it is extremely challenging to prepare teeth conservatively, owing to their anatomy and the minimum thickness of porcelain required. A difficult balance has to be found between over preparing the teeth and placing over-con- toured restorations. However, owing to the excitement and emotion created by the effect of popular large smile makeovers, aggressive tooth preparations, in which teeth are prepared to stumps, seem to have been ac- cepted as normal practice, sim- ply because there has been no alternative that could achieve the patient’s objectives in a suf- ficiently short period. Inman Aligners are now of- fering a minimally invasive al- ternative to patients in the UK. With only one appliance, most Aligner cases can be completed in six to 16 weeks. In anterior crowding cases, Inman Align- ers have proven to be much more time and cost effective than invisible braces or con- ventional fixed and short-term orthodontics. To date, I have treated about 1,000 cases and have found that case acceptance has been close to 100 per cent, simply because many patients much prefer a removable solu- tion that fits their lifestyle more easily. Treatment can also easily be combined with simultaneous bleaching and final edge-bond- ing for quick and non-invasive, dramatic results. From this, a new procedure has arisen in cosmetic dentistry—alignment, bleaching, bonding—which will be covered in the second part of this series. The cases presented in this article will outline some case types that can be treated. The Inman Aligner For over 30 years, spring align- ers were used to correct minor tooth movements. Early de- signs were developed for mi- nor tooth movements and to treat slight rotations. Previous spring aligners were useful, but several problems always limited the amount of tooth movement achievable. Their active com- ponents were made from stain- less-steel wire, which is rela- tively inflexible and lacks any innate springiness. As a result, traditional re- movable appliances required periodic reactivation, leading to short-lived force application that limited the speed of tooth movement, owing to the need to allow the bone around the roots of the teeth being moved to ‘rest’ between successive activa- tions. In addition, the direction of force application with tradi- tional springs was less easy to control, leading to a mousetrap- like force that tended to unseat the appliance. These factors lim- ited the degree of correction that could be accomplished. For larg- er movements, single appliances were insufficient to complete the movement. The Inman Aligner - Part 1 An effective tool for minimally invasive cosmetic surgery by Dr Tif Qureshi page 17DTà THE Clinical Innovations CONFERENCE 2011 The AOG and Smile-on in association with The Dental Directory bring you Friday 6th and Saturday 7th May 2011 The Royal College of Physicians, Regent’s Park, London Confirmed Speakers are: Nasser Barghi, Eddie Lynch, Julian Webber, Wyman Chan, Tif Qureshi, Julian Satterthwaite, Trevor Burke, Bob McLelland, Peet Van Der Vyver, Wolfgang Richter, Liviu Steier, James Russell, Jason Smithson, Eddie Scher Contact us on 020 7400 8967 quoting DTUK10 to get your early booking discount