Background: Remote digital monitoring during orthodontic treatment can help patients in improving their oral hygiene performance and reducing the number of appointments due to emergency reasons, especially in time of COVID-19 pandemic where non-urgent appointments might be discouraged. Methods: Thirty patients scheduled to start an orthodontic treatment were divided into two groups of fifteen. Compared to controls, study group patients were provided with scan box and cheek retractor (Dental Monitoring®) and were instructed to take monthly intra-oral scans. Plaque Index (PI), Gingival Index (GI), and White Spot Lesions (WSL) were recorded for both groups at baseline (t₀), every month for the first 3 months (t₁, t₂, t₃), and at 6 months (t₄). Carious Lesions Onset (CLO) and Emergency Appointments (EA) were also recorded during the observation period. Inter-group differences were assessed with Student's t test and Chi-square test, intra-group differences were assessed with Cochran’s Q-test (significance α = 0.05). Results: Study group patients showed a significant improvement in plaque control at t₃ (p = 0.010) and t₄ (p = 0.039), compared to control group. No significant difference was observed in the number of WSL between the two groups. No cavities were detected in the study group, while five CLO were diagnosed in the control group (p = 0.049). A decreased number of EA was observed in the study group, but the difference was not significant. Conclusions: Integration of a remote monitoring system during orthodontic treatment was effective in improving plaque control and reducing carious lesions onset. The present findings encourage orthodontists to consider this technology to help maintaining optimal oral health of patients, especially in times of health emergency crisis.

Background: Dental monitoring (DM) constitutes a recent technological advance for the remote monitoring of patients undergoing an orthodontic therapy. Especially in times of health emergency crisis, the possibility of relying on remote monitoring could be particularly useful. Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of DM in orthodontic care. Eligibility: Studies conducted on healthy patients undergoing orthodontic care where DM was applied, assessing a change in treatment duration, emergency appointments, in-office visits, orthodontic relapse, early detection of orthodontic emergencies and improvement of oral health status. Information sources: PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus were searched for publications until November 2022. Risk of bias: Quality assessment was performed with the STROBE Checklist. Data extraction: Data were extracted independently by two reviewers, and discrepancies were resolved with a third reviewer. Included studies: Out of 6887 records screened, 11 studies were included. Synthesis of results: DM implemented to the standard orthodontic care was found to significantly decrease the number of in-office visits by 1.68–3.5 visits and showed a possible trend towards improvement of aligner fit. Conversely, evidence does not support a reduction of treatment duration and emergency appointments. The assessment of the remaining variables did not allow any qualitative synthesis. Conclusions: This review highlighted that DM implemented to standard orthodontic care can significantly decrease the number of in-office visits and may potentially result in an improved aligner fit. Due to the low quality of most of the included studies and the heterogeneity of the orthodontic system where DM was applied, studies with different investigation team and rigorous methodology are advocated.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the attitude of dentists and patients towards the use of Dental Monitoring^TM (DM), an orthodontic telemonitoring software. Thus, two different specially prepared specific questionnaires were administered to 80 dentists (40 were general dentists and 40 orthodontists) and 80 orthodontic patients. All dentists judged positively telemonitoring, as 96.25% of them considered telemonitoring indicative of high tech and high-quality treatment; 100% considered it a way to reduce the number of in-office visits; 17.5% agreed on a weekly telemonitoring frequency, 40% on a biweekly, and 42.5% on a lower frequency. Further, 97.5% of patients judged positively telemonitoring; 81.25% of them considered telemonitoring indicative of high-tech treatment; 81.25% declared to be interested in reducing the number of in-office visits through telemonitoring; 27.5% agreed on taking self-picture every week, 57.5% every two weeks, and 15% on a lower frequency. Both patients and dentists positively judged telemonitoring, considering it a technologically advanced tool increasing the perception of quality and accuracy of the treatment. Both groups were interested in reducing the number of in-office visits, although not all of them revealed to be ready to invest more money and time in it.

Linda Sangalli, Fabio Savoldi, Domenico Dalessandri, Luca Visconti, Francesca Massetti, Stefano Bonetti. Korean J Orthod 2022;52:123-30. https://doi.org/10.4041/kjod.2022.52.2.123