Masticatory performance and self-assessed masticatory ability in orthodontic patients using removable posterior biteplate and orthodontic banding cement for bite-raising: a randomized clinical trial

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the masticatory performance and the masticatory ability before and after bite-raising with removable posterior biteplate and with orthodontic banding cement and compare the long-term effects between the two different bite-raising methods.

Materials and Methods: The 12 healthy, orthodontic, patients who have natural permanent dentition with healthy periodontium and required the bite-raising in the comprehensive fixed orthodontic appliances from the Faculty of Dentistry, Chulalongkorn University were collected (mean age 22.58±8.45 years). A group of patients was randomly divided into two groups of equal size. The first group used removable posterior biteplate and the other group used orthodontic banding cement. The procedures consisted of two parts. In part 1, the masticatory performance was analyzed by having the subjects chewed naturally on a portion of artificial test food. In part 2, the masticatory ability was analyzed by having the subjects chewed eight different foods and answered the questionnaire. Measurements were made before bite-raising (T0), immediately after bite-raising (T1), 1 month (T2), and 3 months after bite-raising (T3). For the within-group analyses, the statistical analyses were performed using the repeated measures ANOVA and further post hoc analysis when the normal distribution of outcome variable is assumed. Friedman test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test with Bonferroni correction were performed when the normal distribution is not assumed. The comparative differences of parameters between removable posterior biteplate and orthodontic banding cement, the independent t-test or the Mann-Whitney U test were used according to the data distribution. The significance level was set at 5%.

Results: The masticatory performance and the masticatory ability before and after bite-raising was not significantly different in the removable posterior biteplate group. While the orthodontic banding cement group found a significant difference for the masticatory performance between T0-T1 (P-value=0.023) and T0-T2 (P-value=0.020), there was no significant difference in the masticatory ability among each time points. The comparative results between the two methods revealed a nonsignificant difference for the masticatory performance and the masticatory ability.

Conclusion: There was no significant reduction of the masticatory performance after using the removable posterior biteplate. In contrast, the significant reduction of the masticatory performance in orthodontic banding cement needed 3 months to restore. Both methods did not affect the masticatory ability. For comparative results, the two bite-raising methods did not affect the masticatory performance and the masticatory ability differently.