Measuring dental drift and orthodontic tooth movement in response to various initial forces in adult rats

A method for the quantification of orthodontic tooth movement in the rat is presented. Reliability, sensitivity, and validity were assessed and tooth movement kinetics were determined for initial forces of 20, 40, and 60 gm. The appliance consisted of a 9 mm length of closed coil spring suspended between a cleat and bonded to the occlusal surface of the maxillary first molars and the maxillary incisors. Initial tipping forces were placed by suspending known weights from the anterior end of these coils before fixation to the incisors. Tooth movement was quantified from enlarged cephalograms by measuring the position of a reproducible landmark on the molar cleat with respect to either zygomatic amalgam implants or a barbed broach placed submucosally on the palate. All measurements were made along the molar-incisor vector by projecting at 90 degrees to this line. Validity and sensitivity were assessed by quantifying molar distal drift and comparing these results with reports of bone turnover rates adjacent to distally drifting adult rat molars. Reliability was obtained by estimating the error of a single measurement in a longitudinal study of 12 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats (180 to 200 days) receiving both amalgam and broach implants and a cross-sectional study of 72 animals divided equally into six groups to be killed at 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 14 days. No orthodontic forces were used in this portion of the study. Implant stability within the craniofacial complex was assessed by measuring bilateral broaches as a function of time with respect to each other. There were no systematic errors between replicate films for either the amalgam or the broach method. The 95% confidence limit for a single determination of molar position was 62 microns using the amalgams and 47 microns for the broach (p less than 0.001). The latter could be reduced to 23 microns when the average of four independent determinations was used. Homologous implants did not differ with respect to each other in the sagittal plane but did in the transverse plane (p less than 0.01), migrating laterally 9 microns/day. Linear regression analysis of molar distal movement over time predicted 7.7 microns/day distal drift (p less than 0.01), which compared favorably with reports of 6.7 microns/day of alveolar bone turnover during this drifting process. Characteristic three-part cumulative tooth movement kinetics were obtained for the 40 and 60 gm initial force groups. No individual time point at 60 gm differed from its counterpart at 40 gm.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)