Are Self-Ligating Brackets More Efficient than Conventional Brackets?

Self-ligating brackets have been introduced in orthodontics on an industrial scale in the 80’s. Since this time these products have been actively promoted under the following claims: reduced treatment duration and number of visits, reduced friction, greater comfort, improved hygiene, fuller and wider smiles, reduced chair time, improved results. The purpose of this presentation is to review with you the literature published up to June 2017 focusing on randomized controlled trials and split-mouth trials comparing self-ligating and conventional brackets. The aim of this lecture is to perform a meta-analysis on the selected papers to evaluate, based on the best evidence available, the above-mentioned claims.

Learning Objectives:

• Define the advantages of self-ligating brackets.
• Identify the drawbacks of certain self-ligating brackets.
• Deduce the items for which self-ligating brackets do not differ from conventional brackets.