Fig.6: More bands and brackets are placed in the upper and lower right posterior sextants.  With combination action of elastics and segmental wires, the inclination of the tooth #31 is not only corrected buccolingually (blue arrow), but also mesiodistally (black arrow, uprighting).  The implant crown is mainly used as an occlusal stop; because of constant wear, composite is being added (*) to its occlusal surface of the temporary crown to keep posterior occlusion open (let #2 and 31 move freely).  In this case the implant is in fact not used as a pure anchorage to distalize #31 due to difficulty in placing an open coil spring between #30 and 31 tubes. Return to original article

Xin Wei, DDS, PhD, MS 1st edition 12/23/2012, last revision 12/23/2012