Abstract

Anterior open bites have, historically, been difficult to treat with fixed appliances and, before the advent of the Le Fort I osteotomy, attempts to correct this by mandibular surgery alone showed very high rates of relapse. With maxillary impaction surgery to reduce the posterior vertical dimension, success rates have now greatly improved.

However, the stability of such surgical correction has been reported to be variable. Few follow-up studies have examined surgically-treated patients beyond 5 years. This study examined 39 patients (17 male, 22 female) with a mean age of 20.8 years (range 13.6–43.4 years) who were recalled at an average time period of 8.2 years (range 2.0–18.9 years) after treatment. The original skeletal pattern was Class I in 3 patients, Class II in 20, and Class III in 16. Ten patients had a Le Fort I operation only, 9 had a mandibular operation only, and 20 had bimaxillary procedures. In 25 patients, fixation was by intraosseous wiring, while the remaining 14 had rigid fixation with miniplates and screws. Cephalometric radiographs were obtained at pretreatment, debond and at recall.