CASE STUDY A Tale of Two Tip-Edge Cases: Same Technique; Different Treatment Plans By Bradford R. Williams, DDS I t seems that in orthodontics today, and particu-larly in general practice orthodontics, treatment involving extractions is very unpopular. I believe that some of this bias toward non-extraction is a legitimate concern for creating better profiles and balanced faces, some of the bias is out of concern for making irreversible changes that increase liability, however, some of us simply hold on to non-extraction as though it were a religion and think of extraction of teeth to be blasphemy. The Begg technique and the Tip Edge technique both have been falsely labeled as extraction techniques. With the current bias against extractions, this label is particularly damaging and casts an unfair shadow on those dentists who currently employ these techniques. I currently use straight wire as my technique and have for over 10 years, but I started in the Begg tech-nique under the tutelage or Dr. Charlie Yates and later moved to the Tip Edge technique with the Kessling and Rocke group. Although it is true that these techniques definitely are comfortable with extraction as a legitimate treatment option, there is a much larger percentage of cases treated in Begg/Tip Edge that are non-extraction. When I decided to apply for Diplomate status in the AOS, I chose two cases out of the 10 submitted that were both treated in Tip Edge, one extraction and the other non-extraction. I chose these two cases to pay homage to the Begg/Tip Edge clinicians who were inte-gral in establishing our organization and who selflessly shared their knowledge with me at a time when few 24 January/February 2012 JAOS
Journal of the American Orthodontic Society January-February 2012: Page 24
