Awareness of malocclusion and attitude towards orthodontic treatment among trainee dental surgery technicians in Nigeria

Objective: Malocclusion affects aesthetics, the physical, psychological and social life of a person. The aim of this study was to evaluate the awareness of malocclusion and attitude towards orthodontic treatment among trainee dental surgery technicians in Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study carried out among 68 final year (sixty-eight) trainee dental surgery technicians in Nigeria. The research instrument was a self-administered close ended questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. P value (P<0.05) was regarded as significant. Results: Sixty-one (89.7%) of the respondents were females, while 7 (10.3%) were males. Fifty-seven (83.8%) have heard of the term malalignment of teeth, 53 (77.9%) of the students think malalignment is due to external habits. 61 (89.7%) are aware that few teeth may have to be removed for proper positioning of irregular teeth and 51 (75.0%) were aware that the irregular teeth can be corrected even after 40 years of age. More females were aware of malocclusion and had positive attitude towards orthodontic procedures when compared to the males, but the difference was not statistically significant (P>0.05).Conclusion. Majority of the respondents in this study were aware of the term malalignment and had positive attitude towards orthodontic treatment. More females constituted the study population.

The Study of Soft-Tissue Profile Changes in Patients with Class III Malocclusion after Premolar Extraction Therapy / 天津医药

Objective To investigate the change and correlation between hard-tissue and soft-tissue in patients with class III malocclusion after premolar extraction treatment. Methods Thirty-four adult patients with skeletal classⅢmalocclusion who met the including criteria were included in this retrospective study. The lateral cephalographs were traced and analysed before and after the treatment. Results After orthodontic treatment,the values of long axis of upper incisors and S-N angle (U1-SN) and long axis of lower incisors-mandibular plane (L1-MP) were decreased, and the angle of man-dibular plane (MP-FH) was increased (P<0.01). The SL line was used as a reference, the protrusion of upper incisor (UI-SL) and upper lips (UL-SL) was decreased, and the protrusion of lower incisors (LI-SL) and lower lips (LL-SL) was also de-creased after orthodontic treatment (P<0.05 or P<0.01). There was no significant difference in the relevant measurements of chin. The retraction of upper incisor (△UL-SL) was the only measurement that was positively correlated with upper lip re-traction (△UI-SL). The retraction of upper incisor (△UI-SL) and lower incisor (△LI-SL) were positively correlated with the lower lip retraction (△LL-SL). There was a positive correlation between△UI-SL and△LL-SL. Conclusion The soft-tissue profile improved significantly after four premolars extraction. The change of soft-tissue profile was moderate correlated with hard-tissue.