| When looking to treatment plan the commonly seen Class II malocclusion, there needs to be a way to predictably and efficiently treat these patients. In a paper by Baccetti and colleagues entitled The Cervical Vertebral Maturation (CVM) Method for the Assessment of Optimal Treatment Timing in Dentofacial Orthopedics, they correlated increased mandibular growth over untreated controls with treatment occurring during the growth spurt. Using patients treated and provided by Dr. Wick Alexander where headgear was the main treatment modality, this retrospective study had three objectives which would help conclude the main aim---which was to see if in a population where the majority of Class II cases are treated via headgear is the influence of CVM staging as effective as that shown to be in functional appliances. The null hypothesis presented here is that there is no association between the pre-treatment CVM stage, modality of treatment and the amount of growth seen at the conclusion of treatment.;Using 172 charts, the results showed that headgear was capable of influencing the changes seen through the course of treatment; although a lot of variability was seen. However, the most striking conclusion from this study was the influence headgear had on mandibular growth when treated at the pubertal peak in comparison to functional appliance therapy. Overall, this study shows that if a patient presents at the right skeletal time period with a Class II malocclusion, headgear is a viable option for promoting mandibular growth. |
