Stability of Expansion Attained with Sel-ligating Bracket System

Abstract

Background: The Self-ligating system with in-built mechanism to secure the arch wire advocates comfort for the patient and clinician, reduces the chair side time and produces an expansion of the arch. Damon philosophy emphasises on light forces just enough to move teeth. The intra arch expansion is achieved by boarder arch wires, increasing the inter-canine, inter-premolar and inter-molar distance. The stability of the expansion achieved over the retention period determines the success of the treatment. For the clinician, it’s a challenge to assert the merits for the self-ligating brackets as there are limited studies evaluating the stability of the transverse expansion achieved in both adults and adolescents. This literature review focuses on the transverse expansion achieved by self-ligating systems in the long term and to evaluate if there are any variations in the results achieved in adolescents and adults.