Evaluation of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) during surgically-assisted acceleration of orthodontic treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: With the widespread of surgically-assisted orthodontic acceleration, the analysis of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) has become very important to assure patient acceptance and satisfaction before adopting any acceleration procedure.

Objective: This review aimed to critically appraise the available evidence regarding the levels of pain, discomfort, functional impairments, and other patient-reported outcome measures during surgically-assisted acceleration of orthodontic treatment compared with the traditional non-accelerated treatment.

Search methods: Eight electronic bibliographic databases were searched from January 1990 till May 2022. A manual search of the selected orthodontic journals was also undertaken.

Selection criteria: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included in this systematic review on patients undergoing orthodontic treatment with one group subjected to an acceleration procedure.

Data collection and analysis: Cochrane's risk of bias tool (RoB2 tool) was used to assess the risk of bias of the included RCTs. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) guidelines were used to assess the overall quality of the evidence.

Results: Thirteen RCTs were included in this review (333 patients), and only minimally invasive surgically-assisted acceleration studies were included. Two RCTs were included in the quantitative synthesis of data. After the first day of surgical intervention, the levels of pain and discomfort ranged from mild to moderate in the surgical groups (mean values ranged from 0.8 to 6.8), while it was mild in the control groups. However, on the seventh day after the surgical intervention, the levels of pain, discomfort, swelling, and functional impairments were almost similar between groups. According to the GRADE, the quality of evidence supporting these findings ranged from low to very low.

Conclusions: All surgical interventions were minimally invasive. There was very low to low evidence that acceleration caused mild to moderate pain and discomfort on the first day after the surgical intervention and disappeared completely at one week following surgery. Functional impairments were found within acceptable limits immediately and in the short-term follow-up. More high-quality randomized controlled clinical trials are needed to establish good evidence in this field.

Registration: The protocol of this systematic review was registered in PROSPERO database (CRD42021274481) during the first stages of this review.