Retrospective Analysis of Different Bracket Systems used in the Treatment of Patients with Anterior Crowding: A Longitudinal Comparative Study

Introduction: New design of brackets have been introduced in the field of orthodontics in the recent past, and one of such advancement is the self-ligating brackets. These brackets are said to have less friction, with a shorter period of treatment. Better patient acceptance and good treatment results are some of the other advantages offered by self-ligating brackets. Hence, we comparatively evaluated root resorption of anterior teeth by self-ligating and conventional preadjusted brackets in cases of severe anterior crowding in class I patients. Materials and methods: The present study was carried out at the department of orthodontics in a dental institution and included 140 patients that presented with the chief complaint of Angle class I malocclusion with crowding of more than 6 mm in the anterior tooth region. Two groups were formed with 70 patients in each group. In one group self-ligating brackets were used, while in other group conventional brackets were used. Malmgren’s method was sued for evaluating the root resorption score ranging from 0 to 4. All the results were analyzed by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences