Sivabalan Vasudavan

Harvard University | Harvard · Department of Developmental Biology

Removable appliances are an important part of orthodontic treatment. The Twin-block is widely used for Class II correction. Traditionally, an impression, bite registration, and mounted plaster casts are required to fabricate the acrylic appliance, which usually requires a specialized laboratory. This makes the process expensive and also time-consum...

Successful treatment of a patient’s presenting malocclusion requires proper diagnosis, sound treatment planning principles, and correct biomechanical design. Conventional dental casts and two-dimensional radiographs offer limited possibilities to test different treatment approaches and even less possibilities of assessing the movement of each tooth...

Supra-erupted maxillary molar teeth pose a major restorative challenge when attempting to prosthetically rehabilitate a partially edentulous mandibular dental arch. Traditional approaches with conventional tooth-borne appliances usually entail undesirable side-effects, including extrusion of adjacent teeth. Temporary anchorage devices (TADs), often...

An increasing number of patients seek orthodontic treatment with aligner therapy. Pure bodily tooth movement with sequential plastic aligner therapy is challenging to achieve to a high degree of predictability. As a consequence, unilateral or bilateral molar distalization is limited when relying on aligner movement alone. By using palatal mini-impl...

Problems and Exercises in Orthodontic Biomechanics. Ancillary Material to Biomechanics Courses. www.ioss-ortho.com I have dedicated the last 30 years of my life to developing and teaching orthodontic biomechanics. During my tenure as a teacher, one of the most frequent requests from students has been for learning tools that test both their knowledg...

This article reports on the technical aspects of using a computer-aided design–computer-aided manufacturing (CAD-CAM) insertion guide for the placement of orthodontic mini-implants used for the purpose of providing anchorage support for maxillary molar distalization. A 10-year-old girl presented with a bilateral full-step Angle Class II molar relat...

A unique clinical challenge presents when dealing with a compromised first permanent molar. A compelling treatment option for consideration is the removal of a nonrestorable first permanent molar, with the subsequent “replacement” through controlled mesial tooth movement of viable second and third molars. To reinforce the anchorage support associat...

Pediatr Dent 2019;41(1):25-30 Purpose: The purposes of this study were to investigate prescribing patterns of antibiotics for the management of common pediatric oral infections, and to and identify the independent predictors of antibiotic preference across different groups of dental practitioners in Massachusetts, USA. Methods: A cross-sectional...

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to investigate prescribing patterns of antibiotics for the management of common pediatric oral infections, and to and identify the independent predictors of antibiotic preference across different groups of dental practitioners in Massachusetts, USA. Methods: A cross-sectional survey assessed antibiotic presc...

The objective of this article was to illustrate the digital process in the custom fabrication of metallic mini-implant supported appliances. An implant-supported appliance was produced for a patient using a CAD-CAM procedure without a physical impression or a printed model. The work flow consisted of mini-implant insertion into the palate, recordin...

Background:A young adolescent female, aged 17 years and one month, presented seeking orthodontic treatment to address the congenital absence of her maxillary lateral incisors. Aims:The therapeutic aims were to provide an adequate aesthetic and functional occlusion, coupled with sound adjunctive periodontal tissue relationships and a favourable long...

Purpose: To (1) quantify the three-dimensional treatment effect of a Mesialslider appliance using superimposed digital models, (2) to evaluate anchorage loss (measured by incisor displacement), and (3) to assess agreement between two different matching approaches, i.e., control point (CP)-based and iterative closest point (ICP) matching. Methods:...

Dental age estimation becomes a challenge once the root formation is concluded. In living adults, one dental age indicator is the formation of secondary dentine, also associated with orthodontic treatment as well as root shortening. The aim of this study was to establish whether these secondary effects of orthodontic treatment could generate a stat...

Importance: The need to rely on proper, simple, and accurate methods for age estimation in adults is still a world-wide issue. It has been well documented that teeth are more resistant than bones to the taphonomic processes, and that the use of methods for age estimation based on dental imaging assessment are not only less invasive than those base...

Objective: To test the variability of the volume measurements when different segmentation methods are applied in pulp volume reconstruction. Materials and methods: Osirix® and ITK-SNAP software were used. Different segmentation methods (Part A) and volume approaches (Part B) were tested in a sample of 21 dental CBCT's from upper canines. Differe...

Different non-invasive methods have been proposed for dental age estimation in adults, with the Kvaal et al. method as one of the more frequently tested in different populations. The purpose of this study was to apply the Kvaal et al. method for dental age estimation on modern volumetric data from 3D digital systems. To this end, 101 CBCT images fr...

Successful intervention in a developing Class III malocclusion with facemask protraction therapy depends on a patient's ability to adhere to the recommendations for duration of appliance wear. In this article, we report the introduction of a novel approach for tracking of the duration of application of a protraction facemask, with the incorporation...

Objective: To evaluate nasal symmetry using three-dimensional photogrammetry following primary tip rhinoplasty with or without an internal splint in patients with unilateral complete cleft lip/palate. Design: We captured three-dimensional images of patients with unilateral complete cleft lip/palate who underwent nasolabial repair by rotation-adv...

The estimation of chronological age through assessment of dental radiographs is well-established and a useful method to assist in the identification of persons in forensic and anthropological scenarios. The objective of our investigation was twofold: (i) to validate the Kvaal et al. age-estimation method on a sample of Western Australian subjects,...

Recently, skeletal anchorage devices have been used as anchorage units for upper molar intrusion as a way of correcting an anterior open bite malocclusion. To avoid the surgical procedures associated with the placement of miniplates in the zygomatic area, mini-implants may be inserted palatally or buccally in the alveolar process. However, consider...

To identify the nasolabial soft tissue changes that occur after Le Fort I advancement. A prospective study of patients who had Le Fort I advancement at the Children's Hospital Boston from 2005 to 2007. The pre- and postoperative anthropometeric nasolabial measurements were recorded by a single examiner. A total of 37 patients with a mean age of 18....

Objective: Our purpose was to compare speech outcomes among three primary procedures for symptomatic submucous cleft palate (SMCP): two-flap palatoplasty with muscular retropositioning, double-opposing Z-palatoplasty, or pharyngeal flap. Design: Retrospective review. Setting: Tertiary hospital. Patients, participants: All children with SMCP...

The facial features of children with FGFR3Pro250Arg mutation (Muenke syndrome) differ from those with the other eponymous craniosynostotic disorders. We documented midfacial growth and position of the forehead after fronto-orbital advancement (FOA) in patients with the FGFR3 mutation. We retrospectively reviewed all patients who had an FGFR3Pro250A...

To explore differences in craniofacial structures and obesity between Caucasian and Chinese patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Inter-ethnic comparison study. Two sleep disorder clinics in Australia and Hong Kong. 150 patients with OSA (74 Caucasian, 76 Chinese). Anthropometry, cephalometry, and polysomnography were performed and compared....

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are viewed as the gold standard for clinical research. Oftentimes the citation counts serve as an important measure for assessing the significance of an RCT to promote the dissemination of science. This study attempts to identify the factors associated with the number of times RCTs are cited within the first 24 m...