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Preliminary efficacy of tooth movement in clarity aligners

The newly emerging Clarity™ Clear Aligner System from 3M has set out to address one of the biggest pitfalls of thermoplastic aligners: accuracy of orthodontic movements. The 3M Clarity™ Clear Aligner System is unique among clear aligners because it employs a proprietary, sophisticated machine-learning algorithm to design orthodontic movement schematics. The core of the Clarity™ Aligner System is artificial intelligence, meaning that a prospective analysis of preliminary data is essential for the development and improvement of the accuracy of the algorithm. This study investigates movement and accuracy of the Clarity™ Aligner System, from a preliminary data subset from ongoing prospective, randomized clinical trials. Movement from the first trial subset is examined in terms of the following movement factors: secondary premolar-secondary premolar (5+5 in the Palmer system) arch expansion or crowding resolved, absolute rotation, absolute mesial-distal tipping, and absolute torque for both the crown and root. These movements are further examined according to specific tooth types.
Both actual observational orthodontic movements and theoretical movements are designed by the Clarity™ System. The accuracy of actual movement in terms of theoretical movements is calculated; however, it is impossible to calculate the significance of these accuracies due to a complete lack of benchmark movement values for the clear aligner market. There are no benchmark values to compare to, so orthodontic movements will be critically examined for performance, and casually compared to alternative aligner systems. Identifying potential weaknesses in the Clarity™ Aligner System is imperative for maximizing its effectiveness.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/34841
Date21 February 2019
CreatorsWarshawsky, Noah
ContributorsDavies, Theresa
Source SetsBoston University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis/Dissertation

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