First, we want to thank Marcio José da Silva Campos et al for their remarks on our article.

We agree that the 2 extraction patients will affect the outcome of treatment at T2 in comparison with the 12 nonextraction patients. We thought intensively about taking these 2 patients out of the group of 14 patients, but we came to the conclusion that this was not fair for the following reasons.

• 1.

  The original 22 patients in the group of Class II Division 1 subjects were consecutive Herbst patients used in a clinical experimental study. The aim of this original study was to assess the immediate effects of 6 to 7 months of Herbst treatment. Lateral headfilms were analyzed with respect to the amounts of skeletal and dental changes (in the maxilla and mandible) that contributed to Class II corrections in the molar and incisor areas. Superimposed lateral headfilms from all 22 patients were presented. The basic aim of the 32-year follow-up study was to find out what happened to the 22 Herbst patients in a very long-term perspective. Fourteen subjects came to the follow-up examination. To exclude the 2 extraction patients would have ruined the idea of this follow-up study. To make it possible for the reader to differentiate between the findings in the extraction and nonextraction subjects, the individual values for all variables were presented graphically in the article (Figs 1-7).

• 2.

  Our article is the first of 4 dealing with the 32-year follow-up findings after Herbst treatment in these 14 subjects. The second article addresses the very long-term effects on the mandibular incisor segment: incisor tooth inclination, tooth irregularity, and gingival recession. This article has been accepted for publication in the AJO-DO . The third article deals with the cephalometric changes, especially addressing late adult craniofacial growth. This manuscript was submitted to the AJO-DO . In the fourth article, we are studying 6-year and 32-year posttreatment TMJ changes with lateral tomography and CBCT. This article will soon be submitted to the AJO-DO . It would really be a clinical shame and a scientific error to exclude the 2 extraction patients in any of the articles.