Acceleration of clear aligner treatment with low-frequency vibration in 66 cases

Objectives: The main goal of the present study was to find whether the use of nearly invisible aligners together with vibratory stimulation was able to shorten the lag times between aligner exchanges, reduce the number of refinements and thus reduce the total treatment time. Materials and methods: The study included 66 successive participants who gave agreement to specific treatment protocols. Each treatment included the use of aligners for durations shorter than those recommended by the manufacturer together with daily vibratory stimulation. The purpose of the analysis was to search for the: i) number of aligners used; ii) number of refinements required; iii) duration of aligner wear; iv) total treatment durations. Results: The protocols resulted in: i) a reduction of the expected number of refinements (less than two in 51 cases); ii) a reduction of the expected durations of aligner wear; iii) 60%, 44% and 20% reduction of the total treatment duration in aligner exchange series initially scheduled at 14-, 10- and 7-day intervals, respectively; this corresponded to median gains of 14, 7 and 2 months over the expected total treatment durations (P 0.001). Conclusion: The combination of nearly invisible aligners with vibration was able to shorten the lag times between visits. This was likely to have alleviated the workload of dental clinics per patient and increased patient satisfaction, at least with the total treatment duration. Keywords: AcceleDent Optima, accelerated osteogenic orthodontics, clear aligners, Invisalign system, orthodontic aligners, vibration