The Council on Scientific Affairs (COSA) recently announced its selection of the best basic science and clinical research studies submitted by US and Canadian postgraduate orthodontic programs. Plan to hear these scholars present their work by attending the 110th Annual Session in Washington, DC, from April 30 to May 4, 2010.

The Milo Hellman Research Award winner for 2010 is Soulafa Susan Baloul, Boston University Goldman School of Dental Medicine, for her study entitled, “Mechanism of action and morphological changes in the alveolar bone in response to selective alveolar decortication facilitated tooth movement.” The aim of this study was to test whether corticotomy-induced osteoclastogenesis and bone remodeling underlie orthodontic tooth movement and how selective alveolar decortication enhances the rate of tooth movement. A total of 114 Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with corticotomy alone, tooth-movement alone, or “combined” therapy. Decortication surgery at the buccal and palatal aspects of the maxillary left first molar included 5 decortication dots on each side. The first molars were moved by using a 25-g Sentalloy spring. Measurements were done at baseline and 3, 7, 14, 21, 28, and 42 days later. The data suggest that alveolar decortication enhances the rate of tooth movement during the initial tooth displacement phase; this results in a coupled mechanism of bone resorption and bone formation during the earlier stages of treatment, and this mechanism underlies rapid orthodontic tooth movement.

The Harry Sicher Research Award winner is Manuel O. Lagravère, University of Alberta, for his thesis entitled, “Transverse, vertical and anteroposterior changes obtained from bone-anchored maxillary expansion vs. traditional rapid maxillary expansion: a randomized clinical trial.” The purpose of this study was to determine transverse, vertical, and anteroposterior skeletal and dental immediate and long-term changes in adolescents having expansion treatment with tooth-borne expanders or bone-anchored expanders measured on cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images. Sixty-two patients needing maxillary expansion were randomly allocated to 1 of 3 groups: traditional hyrax tooth-borne expander, bone-anchored expander, and control. Records (CBCT scans) were taken at baseline, immediately after expansion, after removal of appliances (6 months), and before fixed bonding (12 months). The immediate changes showed that the tooth-borne expander caused statistically significant expansion at the crown level of the maxillary first premolars. Dental crown expansion was greater than apical expansion and skeletal expansion for both appliances. Both treatment groups had significant long-term expansion at the maxillary first molar crown and root apex, maxillary first premolar crown and root, maxillary alveolus at the first molar and premolar regions, and central incisor root. The tooth-borne expansion resulted in significantly more long-term expansion at the maxillary premolar crown and premolar root than did the bone-borne expansion appliance. Both expanders showed similar results. The greatest changes happened in the transverse dimension, but changes in the vertical and anteroposterior dimensions were negligible. Dental expansion was also greater than skeletal expansion. You can read the full text of this article in Online Only section of the Journal in the issue of March 2010.

The remaining 3 prizes selected this year by COSA are the Thomas M. Graber Awards of Special Merit, 2 from the basic research category and 1 from the clinical research category. The first award goes to Cody Moore, Baylor College of Dentistry, for his study, “Effects of latency on the quality and quantity of bone produced by dentoalveolar distraction osteogenesis.” The second basic research award goes to Hideki Ikeda, Baylor College of Dentistry, for the study “Three-dimensional analysis of peri-bone-implant contact of rough surface mini-screw implants.” The third goes to Cameron J. Jolley, University of Washington, for his thesis “The dental effects of interceptive orthodontic treatment in a Medicaid population: interim results from a randomized clinical trial.”

Congratulations to this year’s winners. COSA received 17 submissions for consideration and thanks all applicants, department chairs, and mentors for their interest in making these research findings available to our specialty.