Evaluating the effect of Headgear on C axis - A Cephalometric Study

Assessment of the growth and development of the maxilla, mandible and the craniofacial complex is an essential part of the diagnostic process in orthodontics. The main treatment goal in growing patients is the correction of abnormal maxillofacial relationships. Headgear appliances are frequently used to apply orthopedic forces to the maxilla. Use of orthopedic force for the control of excess maxillary growth is nothing new. But the exact effect of headgear force on altering the magnitude and direction of maxillary basal growth has not been quantitated. The effect of headgear on maxilla can be measured quantitatively by the use of the newly described maxillary growth vector, the ‘C’ axis. The samples comprised of 20 patients between 7–14 years of age, who had come as outpatients to the Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, Govt Dental College, Bangalore and were treated with headgear therapy, without any adjunctive orthodontic treatment. The mean treatment period was 6.4 months. Lateral cephalograms were taken of all the 20 patients both during the pretreatment and post treatment periods. This acted as the test group. These values were compared with the values of the control group, which were obtained by using the linear regression formulae, as given by Stanley Braun et al.