Alleviation of mandibular anterior crowding with copper-nickel-titanium vs nickel-titanium wires: a double-blind randomized control trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Copper (Supplement).

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficiency of copper-nickel-titanium (CuNiTi) vs nickel-titanium (NiTi) archwires in resolving crowding of the anterior mandibular dentition.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 2 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are children and teenagers, both men and women.

Sixty patients were included in this single-center, single-operator, double-blind randomized trial.

All patients were bonded with the In Ovation-R self-ligating bracket (GAC, Central Islip, NY) with a 0.022-in slot, and the amount of crowding of the mandibular anterior dentition was assessed by using the irregularity index.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and double-blind study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the Copper (Supplement) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

As a double-blind Copper (Supplement) study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The patients were randomly allocated into 2 groups of 30 patients, each receiving a 0.016-in CuNiTi 35 degrees C (Ormco, Glendora, Calif) or a 0.016-in NiTi (ModernArch, Wyomissing, Pa) wire.

The type of wire selected for each patient was not disclosed to the provider or the patient.

Demographic and clinical characteristics between the 2 wire groups were compared with the t test or the chi-square test and the Fisher exact test.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Copper, Dental Alloys, Malocclusion, Mandible, Nickel, Orthodontic Brackets and Orthodontic Wires.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and double-blind study of Copper (Supplement) in 2 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 3 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2009 (American journal of orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics : official publication of the American Association of Orthodontists, its constituent societies, and the American Board of Orthodontics), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.