Periodontal plastic surgery for the management of an ankylosed permanent maxillary lateral incisor: A clinical report with 5-year follow-up.

Anterior maxillary tooth ankylosis disturbs the development of the alveolar bone process, leading to discrepancies between the cervical gingival margin and incisal edge position of the affected tooth, and therefore, the esthetics is compromised. Proposed treatments in adults and growing patients have been used successfully, but they have disadvantages and are contraindicated in some circumstances. This article proposes an alternative treatment for an ankylosed permanent maxillary anterior tooth with a slow replacement resorption rate in an adult patient, for whom a combination of a periodontal plastic surgery procedure and a fixed dental prosthesis was used to correct the esthetics. This treatment has less risk of complications, preserves the ankylosed tooth as long as possible, creates an optimal gingival contour, and maintains the alveolar bone for further treatment should the tooth be lost.

Celebrex offers a small protection from root resorption associated with orthodontic movement.

UNLABELLED: Tooth movement results from alveolar bone resorption/deposition following application of orthodontic forces, and root resorption can be an undesirable complication associated with this process. No treatment for external root resorption is available to date. OBJECTIVE: To determine if COX-2 inhibitors like Celebrex are effective in protecting root resorption associated with orthodontic forces. METHODS: A force of 80 grams was applied to the left maxillary first molars of 7-week-old female Wistar rats using nickel titanium closed coil springs attached to the cervical area of the incisors with 0.010 stainless-steel ligature wires. Twenty animals were divided into three experimental groups: one receiving no treatment, the second receiving 25mg/kg, and the third receiving 50 mg/kg of celecoxib (Celebrex) in their drinking water. Rats were maintained on a soft diet and euthanized two weeks after initial placement of the force. Paraffin-embedded sections of the right (control) and left (experimental) maxillae were stained with H&E and the areas of root resorption were examined by counting the number of lacunaes in the roots. RESULTS: No difference in the distance of tooth movement (0.5 mm/two weeks) was seen in all three groups. The rats that received the low dose of Celebrex showed no statistically significant difference in root resorption than that of the rats that received no dose. The rats that received the high dose of Celebrex showed a lower number of lacunaes (mean = 3.5) than that of the control group (mean 10.2; p=0.02). CONCLUSIONS: Administration of Celebrex during the application of orthodontic forces does not interfere with tooth movement and appears to offer some slight protection against root resorption.