[Pre- and post surgical orthodontic treatment of mandibular prognathism]

To analyze the patients we treated in clinic through combined orthodontic-orthognathic surgery, and get some guidance for the future clinical work.

All 40 skeletal Class III malocclusion patients we analyzed were from joint clinic of our hospital. They aged from 17 to 38.

The duration for presurgical orthodontic treatment was 9 months on average (2-25 months), and for postsurgical orthodontic treatment about 7.6 months on average (2-15 months). The duration for whole active treatment was 16 months on average (4-41 months). The objectives of presurgical orthodontic are: Alignment of dental arches, decompensation of anterior and posterior teeth, leveling of arches, and coordination of the width of the upper and lower arches. After presurgical orthodontic treatment, most of the patients could be treated by one piece surgery, which could simplify the surgical procedure and reduce the relapse rate of surgery. During the surgery, we modified the intermaxilary fixation wires. We used rigid rectangular stainless steel wires with Edgewise appliances as the fixation wires instead of conventional canine and molar bands with multiloop wires. The aims of the postsurgical orthodontic treatment are: closing residual spacing, extrusion of posterior teeth for correction of local openbite in premolars region, paralleling of the teeth, and adjustment of occlusion.

Pre- and post-ssurgical orthodontic treatment is essential to the surgical treatment for mandibular prognathism.