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Are Orthodontists Better at Invisalign®? A Survey of General Dentists and Orthodontists Says. . .1/13/2017 BY TATE H. JACKSON AND WILLIAM V. GIERIE STUDY SYNOPSIS A study in the Angle Orthodontist has surveyed 1,000 General Dentists and 1,000 Orthodontists – drawn from a list of Invisalign® providers on the company’s website. Those surveyed were asked to rate their confidence using Invisalign® to treat six different cases for which intra-oral photographs were provided: a Deep Bite case, a Posterior Crossbite case, a Anterior Open Bite case, Mild Crowding case, a Severe Crowding case, and a Class II case. Additionally, both Orthodontists and General Dentists were asked about their various treatment planning (e.g. time spent with ClinChecks) and mechanics (e.g. use of Class II elastics or auxiliaries) tendencies with Invisalign®. Finally, demographic and training information, as well as experience in treating cases with Invisalign® was reported. Overall, both Orthodontists and General Dentists were relatively confident in treating the four cases presented with Invisalign®. Interestingly, General Dentists were significantly more confident when it came to more complex cases: deep bite, severe crowding, and Class II. Orthodontists reported higher confidence in treating mild crowding than General Dentists. Orthodontists were significantly more likely to spend more time reviewing ClinCheck set-ups and were more likely to use refinements and elastics as a part of treatment. Not surprisingly, Orthodontists reported more training and experience using Invisalign® and were more likely than General Dentists to tell patients that their malocclusion was too complex for Invisalign®. WHAT THE PROFESSORS THINK This article provides some data for practicing Orthodontists that might be of great use in discussing with patients why orthodontic care is specialized treatment – not just the appliance used to straighten teeth. The use of a specific case records in conjunction with confidence ratings, and not just a survey self-report, gives these data some greater credibility. The use of intra-oral photographs alone had good rationale, since it provided a realistic version of the information that a General Dentist might consider when planning an Invisalign® case. The structure of the survey, asking respondents to give demographic and training information after completing the confidence ratings is helpful since it aids in avoiding bias when reporting confidence. The fact that the response rate to the survey is not clearly reported is an unfortunate shortcoming of the study – one that, if clarified, would significantly improve the reliability of the results. There are two pieces of information from this study that are most interesting and clinically relevant:
Article Reviewed: Best et al. Treatment management between orthodontist and general practitioners performing clear aligner therapy. Angle Orthodontist. Online Early Nov 2016.
1 Comment
Alexandra Best
4/24/2017 06:20:34 pm
Dear Drs Jackson and Gierie, I just wanted to mention that this article is now available in Angle's May edition, and it includes a paragraph that was accidentally deleted from the earlier online version reviewed above. That missing paragraph discusses the response rate, which was critical to the results as noted in the review. "Responses were received from 374 orthodontists and 229 general dentists, for a response rate of 37% and 23%, respectively." Thank you!
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Tate H. Jackson, DDS, MS CategoriesArchives
October 2019
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