Tomographic assessment of palatal suture opening pattern and pterygopalatine suture disarticulation in the axial plane after midfacial skeletal expansion

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the palatal suture opening and the pterygopalatine suture disarticulation pattern in the tomographic axial plane after treatment with midfacial skeletal expander (MSE). Materials and methods: Pre-and post-expansion CBCT records of 50 subjects (20 males, 30 females, mean age 18 ± 3 years) who were treated with MSE (Biomaterials Korea, Seoul, Korea) appliance were superimposed and compared using OnDemand software. Reference planes were identified and the angulation of the midpalatal suture opening after expansion was calculated as well as the frequency of the pterygopalatine suture split. Results: After MSE treatment, the mean palatal suture opening angle (SOA) was 0.57°. (− 0.8°to 1.3°). There was no significant difference between males and females in terms of the palatal suture opening pattern (P > 0.05). Only 3 out of 50 (6%) subjects presented SOA above 1 degree. Also, 3 out of 50 (6%) patients presented a negative SOA value. With regard to the pterygopalatine suture split, 84 sutures out of 100 (84%) presented openings between the medial and lateral pterygoid plates on both right and left sides. Partial split was detected with 8 patients (5 females, 3 males). Five patients had split only in the medial pterygoid plates of both pterygomaxillary sutures, and 3 patients exhibited disarticulation on the right side only. No significant differences were found in the frequency of suture opening between males and females (P = 1.000). Conclusions: MSE appliance performed almost parallel expansion in the axial view. Remarkably, this study shows that pterygopalatine suture can be split by MSE appliance without the surgical intervention; the disarticulation of pterygopalatine suture was visible in most of the patients.

Three‐dimensional assessment of asymmetric mid‐palatal suture expansion assisted by a customized microimplant‐supported rapid palatal expander in non‐growing patients: Uncontrolled Clinical Trial

“…7 The asymmetrical expansion in the anterior part of maxillary bones might lead to asymmetrical alteration in the soft tissues of midface region. 10 Although it has been demonstrated that this appliance causes parallel expansion in the sagittal dimension, 7,11 few research has assessed the relevant components and degree of parallelism in the transverse dimension. 7,9,12 Cantarella et al 7 demonstrated that the mid-palatal suture opening was nearly parallel in sagittal direction.…”

An assessment of the magnitude, parallelism, and asymmetry of micro-implant-assisted rapid maxillary expansion in non-growing patients

“…1) are being used to reduce the drawbacks of dentoalveolar tipping caused by RPE [7]. Although MSE has shown to lead to more parallel expansion in the anterior-posterior dimension [8,9], only few studies have quantified the amount of expansion, including the degree of parallelism, and none have focused on non-growing patients exclusively.…”

Three-dimensional craniofacial changes with maxillary expansion in young adult patients with different craniofacial morphology

“…In the previous studies, the use of maxillary skeletal expanders (MSE), a kind of MARPE appliance, produced almost parallel expansion in the axial view. [19,41] Cantarella et al [19] utilized MSE maxillary expander activated by 6.8 ± 1.9 mm on all patients and found that the split at anterior nasal spine (ANS) and at posterior nasal spine (PNS) was 4.8 and 4.3 mm, respectively. e amount of sutural separation at PNS was 90% compared to that at ANS, showing at the opening of the mid-palatal suture was almost perfectly parallel anteroposteriorly.…”