Effectiveness of expansion and compression archwires in the correction of transverse dimension in adolescents

Maxillary transverse deficiency is a malocclusion commonly observed in our orthodontic practice in adolescents. The fully customized WIN lingual technique (DW Lingual Systems, Bad Essen, Germany) allows us to order .016 x .024 steel expansion archwires for the maxilla, or even steel archwires of the same caliber for mandibular compression.

This retrospective study was conducted on a sample of 12 consecutive patients (5 women and 7 men) from Pr. Wiechmann's practice (Bad Essen, Germany), with an average age of 15.8 ± 1.59 years (minimum 12 years and maximum 18 years). These patients were treated exclusively using the fully customized WIN lingual technique, employing both expansion archwires in the maxilla and compression archwires in the mandible. Those who had undergone transverse surgery or interceptive treatment prior to the lingual treatment were excluded from our study. Measurements were taken from models before treatment (T0) and after treatment (T1) to quantify maxillary expansion, mandibular compression, and overall correction.

On average, maxillary expansion was 4.5 ± 2.7 mm, mandibular compression was -3.0 ± 2.4 mm, and total correction was 7.5 ± 2.4 mm, with a maximum of 11.8 mm. These results were statistically significant (p < 0.001).

Thanks to the simultaneous use of maxillary expansion archwires and mandibular compression archwires, posterior crossbite was corrected for all patients in our study. However, measurements were taken only at the level of posterior crossbite.

This study demonstrates the effectiveness of .016 x .024 steel expansion and compression archwires in correcting transverse dimension in adolescents.