Miniscrews versus surgical archwires for intermaxillary fixation in adults after orthognathic surgery

Objective: We compared the skeletal and dental changes that resulted from the use of two methods of intermaxillary fixation (IMF)-miniscrews and surgical archwire-in 74 adult patients who had Class III malocclusion and were treated with the same orthognathic surgical procedure at a hospital in Korea. Methods: All the patients underwent Le Fort I osteotomy and bilateral sagittal split ramus osteotomy with rigid fixation. They were divided into two groups according to the type of IMF used-group 1 underwent surgical archwire fixation and group 2 underwent orthodontic miniscrew fixation. In a series of cephalograms for each patient, we compared vertical and horizontal tooth-position measurements: (a) immediately after surgery ($T_0$), (b) 3 months after surgery ($T_1$), and (c) 6 months after surgery ($T_2$). Cephalometric changes within each group were examined using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) while the independent samples t -test procedure was used to compare the two groups. Results: After surgery, the maxillary incisors tended to be proclined in both groups although there were no significant differences. Incisor overbite increased significantly in both groups from $T_0$ to $T_1$, and the miniscrew group (group 2) showed slightly greater overbite than the archwire group (group 1). Conclusions: This study suggest that the use of orthodontic miniscrews and orthodontic surgical archwire for IMF in adult patients results in similar skeletal and dental changes.