Objective: To assess whether interceptive treatment in the mixed dentition can prevent impaction of palatally displaced maxillary canines (PDC).
Materials and Methods: A literature survey in the PubMed, Cochrane Library electronic databases and Scopus was performed, from January 1966 and May 2009. The inclusion criteria were mixed dentition with uni- or bilateral PDC, randomized controlled trials (RCT), prospective and retrospective studies with untreated controls and clinical trials comparing at least two treatment strategies. Three reviewers selected and extracted the data independently and evaluated the quality of the studies.
Results: The search strategy resulted in 686 articles, of which 2 met the inclusion criteria. Because of the unequivocal results and heterogeneity in the study methods, the scientific evidence was too weak to evaluate the effect that interceptive treatment might have on PDC and which treatment modalities that are most effective. The quality standard of the studies were rated as low because of inadequate sample selection and no description of sample size, confounding factors, uncertainty of randominization and no blinding in measurements.
Conclusion: To obtain reliable scientific evidence, whether interceptive treatment can prevent impaction of PDC and which treatment modalities are the most effective, better-controlled and well-designed RCTs are needed. Future studies should also include assessment of patient satisfaction and pain experience as well as analysis of cost and side effects of the treatments.
This systematic review has given valuable information for desired future studies and such studies are under way now, hopefully a dissertation later.