Digital technique to analyze the wear of the slot after orthodontic treatment through fixed multibracket appliances.

Introduction: To assess the accuracy, repeatability and reproducibility of a measurement digital technique to quantify the wear of the bracket slot walls of the fixed multibracket appliance after orthodontic treatment with the previous measurement traditional technique (scanning electronic microscope (SEM)).

Methods: A total of 100 fixed multibracket appliances were cemented during the 15 months orthodontic treatment and subsequently removed. The fixed multibracket appliances were submitted preoperatively and postoperatively to a micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scan to obtain accurate standard tessellation language (STL) digital files of the fixed multibracket appliances and to a preoperatively and postoperatively SEM analysis.