Does Alt-RAMEC protocol and facemask treatment affect dentoalveolar structures? A 3-dimensional study

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate dentoalveolar changes immediately after the alternate rapid maxillary expansion and constriction (Alt-RAMEC) protocol and facemask (FM) treatment using cone-beam computed tomography images. Materials and Methods: Cone-beam computed tomography images of 20 patients (mean age = 9.64 6 1.3 years) who received the Alt-RAMEC protocol before FM treatment were retrieved in this retrospective study. Dental and alveolar inclinations, buccal and palatal alveolar bone thickness, and buccal and palatal alveolar bone height changes were measured before treatment (T0), after the Alt-RAMEC protocol (T1), and after FM treatment (T2). Measurements for right and left molars were performed separately. The Shapiro-Wilks test was used to assess the conformity of the parameters to the normal distribution. The paired t-test and repeated measures analysis of variance were used for normally distributed data. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Friedman test were used for non-normally distributed data. The Bonferroni correction was used to reduce the chances of obtaining false-positive results. Statistical significance was set at P