The British Orthodontic Conference was held this year in the Riviera Centre at Torquay. It was a well attended and much enjoyed conference, despite the very blustery weather that the ‘English Riviera’ threw at the delegates! Dr Paul Cook and the organizing committee are to be congratulated on such an enjoyable and clinically-orientated programme. The programme this year was divided into a conventional main conference and a new parallel series of seminars on specific areas of interest, in addition to the technicians programme and the dental nurses programme. The international key speakers were Professor Hans Panchertz, Dr Kitty Tulloch and the now almost legendary Professor Bill Proffit, along with a host of ‘home grown’ splendid speakers. The first session of the conference was chaired by Dr Philip Ellisdon who introduced Professor Bill Proffit to a packed auditorium. Professor Proffitt spoke on ‘Open bite’: An overview of a controversial subject’. He outlined clearly the aetiology, diagnosis, and treatment of these challenging cases with emphasis placed on achieving a stable result, and how treatment modalities employed depend crucially upon the age (and, hence, the growth stage) of the patient. This was followed by Dr Mike Cassidy, who gave an update on restorative procedures, which was particularly useful for those of us who no longer pick up a turbine! His talk entitled ‘Decorating the dentition after orthodontic arrangement’ concentrated on decorative changes in the shape, number, and colour of teeth, The final speaker of the session was Dr Kitty Tulloch. The title of her talk, ‘Success and failure of Class II correction related to age and malocclusion severity’ focused on a retrospective review carried out on sequential patients over a 10-year period, from the University of North Carolina. She addressed the question, how do orthodontists decide upon orthodontics with or without surgery in the treatment of Class II cases? Surprisingly, the results of the study indicate that age and severity of the malocclusion only correlate to the treatment chosen in less than half the cases! In conclusion, Dr Tulloch stated that it is possible to successfully treat patients over a wide age range, exhibiting a wide range of malocclusion severity. She urged vigilance when treating vertical growers and cautioned against treatment planning from cephalometric analyses alone. This concluded the first day of the conference, although the bars remained full as delegates caught up with old friends and colleagues. Later that night, it seemed that every restaurant in Torquay was awash with orthodontists! The second day was a departure from the normal conference regime. The main conference was split into two, in the main auditorium was a clinical session, and a parallel Materials Symposium was held in an adjoining room. The clinical session was chaired by Dr John K Williams and opened by Professor Hans Pancherz. His presentation was concerned with the ‘Clinical use of the Herbst appliance’. The presentation began with a brief introduction on the design and construction of the appliance, followed by a discussion of its skeletal and dental effects, highlighting the considerable individual variation achieved. Professor Bill Proffit than gave his second talk of the conference, ‘Orthodontic camouflage vs orthognathic surgery in the treatment of the post adolescent Class II patient’. Professor Proffit defined orthodontic camouflage and described its limitations. He illustrated this with the basic rules of facial aesthetics (was there anyone in the audience who felt attractive after this?). He also discussed the use of video and computer predictions and their place in helping patients understand the aesthetic impact of both camouflage treatment and surgery. The parallel Materials Symposium was chaired by Dr Declan Millett. It began with a ‘Materials Update’ by Dr David Tidy, which was beautifully illustrated not only by orthodontic slides, but those of his livestock and vintage tractors on his own smallholding! He stressed that delegates should think about any new materials before using them and urged us all to audit our work so that we would know how the material affected our practice. Nickel hypersensitivity was also covered in some detail, which proved most interesting. The second speaker of the morning was Dr Ross Hobson, who was invited to speak about the research for which he was awarded the 1994 Houston Scholarship. His topic was ‘Biodegredation of orthodontic composites’. This was a most illuminating presentation of a topic to which clinicians may have never given any previous consideration. The symposium was concluded by Dr C. Rye Mattick, who was invited to speak about the research for which she was awarded the 1997 Chapman Prize. She addressed the conundrum of ‘Why posterior bonds fail’ and spoke in detail about her own research, which was designed to invesMeeting Reports
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Jan 1, 2020
Arwa Saifee + 2
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