Surgical Orthodontics Treatment with Invisalign

Surgical orthodontic treatment is usually required in cases having severe skeletal mal-relationships and malocclusion that cannot be resolved solely by orthodontic treatment. In managing surgical orthodontic cases, pre-surgical orthodontic treatment usually aims at coordinating both dental arches, eliminating dental compensation due to the skeletal mal-relationship if present and to eliminate any dental interferences once dental arches are occluding together after the skeletal malrelationship is corrected by surgical intervention. Post-surgical orthodontic treatment usually aims at finishing and detailing dental arch relationships and ensure that no interferences exist. Traditionally, pre-surgical and post-surgical orthodontic treatments are usually achieved by regular fixed orthodontic appliances and pre-surgical orthodontics usually require having the patients wearing heavy archwires in order to be used for inter-maxillary fixation after surgery. The introduction of clear aligners in surgical orthodontics was initially somehow not well-received by orthodontists and oral surgeons due to the fact that rigid archwires are needed before surgery and clear aligners may have limitations on what can be done in terms of preparing cases with skeletal mal-relationships for orthognathic surgeries. The present chapter will shed the light on surgical orthodontic cases that were treated solely by clear aligners before and after orthognathic surgeries as well as describe steps in management of such cases using clear aligners.

Keywords: Clear aligners, Decompensation, Diagnosis, Orthodontics, Postsurgical, Pre-surgical, Stability, Surgical orthodontics, Temporary anchorage devices, Treatment planning.