Increasing the Efficiency of Relapse Prevention after Orthodontic Treatment by Biological Retention

Abstract

In orthodontics, retention phase is as crucial as the other phases because it is the period of stabilizing teeth in their new position and preventing relapse after the tooth movement. The tooth position maintenance methods in this phase could be classified into mechanical and biological retention. Mechanical retention is the use of removable or fixed retainers to hold the teeth in their position, whereas, biological retention uses pharmaceutical products or devices that modify the activity of osteoblast and osteoclast with the aim to stimulate bone formation and/or inhibit bone resorption in a direction that preventing relapse or stimulate the remodeling of periodontal ligament fibers to reattach in the new position of the teeth. This article aims to review the retention methods which have been contemporary used and the new concept about retention method that has been recently developed.
This review article aims to present the retention methods which used at present and the new concept that has been developed in order to apply for patients and would be useful for the further study.