Acceleration of tooth movement during orthodontic treatment - a frontier in Orthodontics

Ghada Nimeri, Chung H Kau, Nadia S Abou-Kheir, Rachel Corona

Nowadays, there is an increased tendency for researches to focus on accelerating methods for tooth movement due to the huge demand for adults for a shorter orthodontic treatment time. Unfortunately, long orthodontic treatment time poses several disadvantages like higher predisposition to caries, gingival recession, and root resorption. This increases the demand to find the best method to increase tooth movement with the least possible disadvantages. The purpose of this study is to view the successful approaches in tooth movement and to highlight the newest technique in tooth movement. A total of 74 articles were reviewed in tooth movement and related discipline from 1959 to 2013. There is a high amount of researches done on the biological method for tooth movement; unfortunately, the majority of them were done on animals. Cytokine, PTH, vitamin D, and RANKL/RANK/OPG show promising results; on the other hand, relaxin does not accelerate tooth movement, but increases the tooth mobility. Low-level laser therapy has shown positive outcome, but further investigation should be done for the best energy and duration to achieve the highest success rate. Surgical approach has the most predictable outcomes but with limited application due to its aggressiveness. Piezocision technique is considered one of the best surgical approaches because it poses good periodontal tissue response and excellent aesthetic outcome. Due to the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, further investigations should be done to determine the best method to accelerate tooth movement.