Surgical orthodontic treatment is usually required in cases having severe
skeletal mal-relationships and malocclusion that cannot be resolved solely by
orthodontic treatment. In managing surgical orthodontic cases, pre-surgical orthodontic
treatment usually aims at coordinating both dental arches, eliminating dental
compensation due to the skeletal mal-relationship if present and to eliminate any dental
interferences once dental arches are occluding together after the skeletal malrelationship
is corrected by surgical intervention. Post-surgical orthodontic treatment
usually aims at finishing and detailing dental arch relationships and ensure that no
interferences exist. Traditionally, pre-surgical and post-surgical orthodontic treatments
are usually achieved by regular fixed orthodontic appliances and pre-surgical
orthodontics usually require having the patients wearing heavy archwires in order to be
used for inter-maxillary fixation after surgery. The introduction of clear aligners in
surgical orthodontics was initially somehow not well-received by orthodontists and oral
surgeons due to the fact that rigid archwires are needed before surgery and clear
aligners may have limitations on what can be done in terms of preparing cases with
skeletal mal-relationships for orthognathic surgeries. The present chapter will shed the
light on surgical orthodontic cases that were treated solely by clear aligners before and
after orthognathic surgeries as well as describe steps in management of such cases
using clear aligners.
Keywords: Clear aligners, Decompensation, Diagnosis, Orthodontics, Postsurgical,
Pre-surgical, Stability, Surgical orthodontics, Temporary anchorage
devices, Treatment planning.
