Dental developmental stage affects the treatment outcome of maxillary protraction in skeletal Class III children: A systematic review and meta- analysis

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the stage of dental development on the treatment outcome of maxillary protraction in skeletal Class III children. Materials and methods: The Medline, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library, CMB and CNKI database were searched to identify all of the relevant articles published prior to 30 August 2019. The grey literature was also searched. Human controlled clinical trials in which patients with a skeletal Class III malocclusion were treated by maxillary protraction (facemask with or without rapid maxillary expansion) were considered. The quality of the included studies was assessed using ROBINS-I. Meta -analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3. Results: A total of 19 trials were included in the systematic review and 16 trials were included in the meta-analysis, of which three studies were assessed as low risk of bias (high quality), eight were assessed as having a moderate risk of bias, and five were assessed as a high risk of bias. The treatment effect of maxillary protraction in skeletal Class III children was greater in the primary dentition than that in the early mixed dentition with respect to an increase in SNA, ANB and SN/GoGn. The treatment effect was greater in the early mixed dentition than in the late mixed dentition, with an evident decrease in SNB. The treatment effect was greater in the early mixed dentition than that which occurred in the early permanent dentition, with an increase in SNA and ANB. The treatment effect was not significantly different, either between the primary dentition and late mixed dentition, or between the late mixed dentition and early permanent dentition. No study compared the treatment effect between the primary dentition and early permanent dentition. Conclusion: The dental developmental stage affects the treatment effect of maxillary protraction in skeletal Class III children. The treatment effect at an early dentition stage may be more effective than that at a late dentition stage in improving a skeletal Class III relationship. Although the variations in effectiveness between the various dental stage groups were generally statistically significant, most variations were small, with unclear clinical significance.