Temporary Anchorage Devices

Tell an adult patient that you want to implant a 6-mm miniscrew, and right away the horrified fellow might picture you driving a 6-inch-long Home Depot wood screw into his gums.

The patient is wrong about that, of course. "What a lot of my colleagues don't appreciate about miniscrew implants is that they're no more difficult to place than a wood screw in a board."

Miniscrew implants are a hot topic just now: Many prominent speakers at recent orthodontic meetings see them as a way to eliminate the need for headgear and many types of Class II appliances-a potential boon to practices in terms of clinical efficiency and efficacy, as well as a way to attract new general orthodontic patients.

But that's still a matter for debate. More concretely, the big benefit of miniscrew implants (also known as TADs, short for temporary anchorage devices) is found in treating what would otherwise be surgical cases: first and foremost, those with skeletal open-bite and second, those that require maximum anchorage.

"Using miniscrew implants, we're able to close the open bite by intruding the upper and lower posterior teeth." This represents an ideal alternative for patients whose financial status or aversion to risk prohibits orthognathic surgery.

"We're also able to move teeth anteroposteriorly to close extraction sites, or to even distalize teeth to eliminate the need to extract teeth altogether in certain types of cases."

Dr. Scher feels "that the orthodontist should control this treatment modality, and not anybody else."

Learn more about temporary anchorage devices by visiting the Ormco web site!