Non-conventional brackets versus ligatures for the alignment of buccally displaced teeth

AIM: To analyze the forces released by four types of passive stainless steel self-ligating brackets and by two non-conventional elastomeric ligature-bracket systems when compared with conventional elastomeric ligatures on stainless steel brackets during alignment of buccally displaced teeth. MATERIALS AND METHOD: A model consisting of five brackets (from second premolar to the central incisor) was used to assess the forces released by the seven different bracket-ligature systems with 0.012 or 0.014 inch superelastic wires in the presence of various amounts of buccal canine displacement (1.5 to 6.0 mm). Comparisons between the different types of bracket/wire/ligature systems were performed with three-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test (P < 0.05). RESULTS: For buccal misalignments of 1.5 and 3.0 mm, both low-friction and conventional systems released forces for bracket alignment ranging from ~30 to ~160 g. In presence of a large amount of buccal displacement (4.5 or 6.0 mm), the low-friction systems produced significant force, while this dropped to 0 g for the conventional system. CONCLUSION: Non-conventional elastomeric ligature-bracket systems produce levels of force available for tooth movement that are similar to those generated in the presence of passive selfligating brackets.