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Book Review |
Jorge Gregoret, Espaxs, Barcelona 2003, 520 pp., hb £95.00, ISBN 84-7179-3105
This book was first published in Spanish in 1997 and has recently been translated into English due to its popularity, according to the publishers, in the Spanish speaking world.
The book is quite long at 520 pages and, on first glance, at the title a reader may get the impression that the text is a definitive book on orthodontics and orthognathic surgery. In point of fact, the subtitle Diagnosis and Planning should be the main title, as this is exclusively what the authors limit themselves to. The photography and other illustrations in the text are superb and exceedingly well presented, both in content and layout.
The text book presents a fairly rigid mechanical approach to diagnosis and planning, but is impressive in its clarity of presentation and thoroughness of approach. Two-hundred-and eleven of 433 pages in the non-surgical section are given over to cephalometric analyses of different types and, after a while, the reader must surely question the value of such an over reliance on measurement as describers of the problem.
The section on orthognathic survey is quite brief with again a large section dedicated to cephalometrics. Chapter 21 is a very good chapter bringing together soft tissue profile changes following different surgical models with a helpful summary table at the end.
It comes as no great surprise, to those of us nurtured on the Bioprogressive Philosophy, that the preface to the text is authored by Robert Ricketts!
As a well illustrated reference text it would probably serve a valuable purpose in a training institution, but it has an over-reliance on mathematical measurement and analysis that draws the reader a picture lacking in a holistic approach to diagnosis and planning in orthodontics and surgery.
As Albert Einstein said ‘not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted’!
Peter Durning
Tip-edge Orthodontics
Richard Parkhouse, Mosby, Edinburgh 2003, 185 pp., hb £95.00, ISBN 0723432287
This is a high quality book written by a high quality orthodontist. Whilst there have been journal articles and course manuals concerning the Tip-edge technique, this is the first textbook that gives a comprehensive account of treatment using this appliance. The book is divided into 20 chapters. The early chapters are related to the development and philosophy of the appliance, and descriptions of the various components. The bulk of the text is devoted to detailed descriptions and ‘handy hints’ for each stage of treatment. These chapters are well illustrated with line drawings, and colour photographs of clinical cases and typodonts. The quality of the images is good, and the legends are clear and relevant. The final couple of chapters cover precision finishing and the non-compliant patient, and just before the index, a 1-page summary of the aims of each stage and how they are achieved.
The book is written to enable the reader to undertake the clinical management of various malocclusions using the Tip-edge appliance, and there are 11 cases that are fully documented from beginning to end that show a variety of clinical situations, including the different incisor classifications, high and low face heights, and growing and non-growing patients. The author recognizes that the majority of his readers will be looking at the Tip-edge appliance from a pre-adjusted edgewise background. Hence, many of the explanations as to how the appliance achieves its effect are related to edgewise type concepts. The advantages of Tip-edge over the edgewise approach, particularly the management of upright or distally inclined canines and overbite control, are stressed, and the perceived difficulties of precision finishing that are a clear disadvantage of Tip-edge’s predecessor, the Begg appliance, are shown to be elegantly overcome with the ‘propeller’ bracket, as the Tip-edge bracket is sometimes known, and the Sidewinder springs that are the workhorses for achievement of the quality finish. The ability to switch anchorage from the posterior to the anterior end of the dental arch using the Sidewinder springs is clearly described and illustrated.
The whole concept of anchorage in Tip-edge is fundamentally different to that of the edgewise type appliances, and the reviewer would have liked to have had more of the text devoted to a discussion of treatment planning and extraction decisions. A careful reading of the text gives some help in this area, but having spent years treating cases with various pre-adjusted edgewise appliances, the reviewer has been surprised at the amount of extraction space remaining at the start of stage 2 that needs closing. More emphasis on the changed mind set required for Tip-edge would have saved the patients a few months of treatment and the reviewer some emotional turmoil!
Time will tell how far the Tip-edge appliance will penetrate into the fixed appliance ‘market’. This book presents an eloquent and persuasive case for the use of the appliance that enhances both the reputation of the appliance and the author.
Richard Oliver
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