Effect of personalized miniscrew-assisted rapid palatal expander on expansion of the median palatal suture in adults

To investigate the manufacturing procedures of personalized miniscrew-assisted rapid palatal expanders (pMARPE) using digital technologies and to evaluate the effect of the expanders when expanding the midpalatal suture of an adult.

Digital technologies were used to make pMARPE, which was used to treat a 21-year-old woman with maxillary transverse deficiency (MTD). The relevant literature on MARPE was reviewed.

PMARPE could be manufactured using intraoral digital scanning, computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing(CAD/CAM), and 3D printing technologies. After expansion, the width of the anterior midpalatal suture, posterior midpalatal suture and maxillary skeletal width increased by 3.9 mm, 3.2 mm and 4.7 mm, respectively. There was no significant change in the inclination of maxillary first molars, and the height of alveolar ridge decreased slightly. It could be seen that using digital technologies to manufacture personalized expanders was possible for MARPE, and the initial stability of miniscrews played an important role in the expansion success rate, the increase of molar inclination is composed of many parts, and the decrease of alveolar ridge height may be overestimated due to the measurement method, as shown by a literature review.

The midpalatal suture of an adult patient with MTD could be expanded by pMARPE. However, the effect of this expander on the inclination of the first molar and alveolar bone height needs to be further studied with a larger sample size.