History
In 1970, Dr. Kurz started placing clear
plastic braces on the lingual surfaces of
patient's teeth and in 1976 Dr. Kurz
submitted the first lingual appliance patent
with the U.S. Patent Office.
In 1979, in cooperation with Ormco and the
precise engineering of Dr. Craig Andreiko
the Ormco-Kurz appliance was fabricated.
Drs. Jim Mullick and Jim Wildman also
provided significant input in the early stages
of development of the Lingual appliance.
In 1981, gratified by its early success, Ormco formed a task force composed primarily of Drs. Craven Kurz, Jack Gorman and Bob Smith. This task force and the contribution of other pioneer orthodontists such as Jim Hilgers, Bob Scholtz, Wick and Moody Alexander made significant contributions into the first development of the technique. A significant number of 3-day courses were taught to orthodontists from around the world.
Lingual orthodontics reached its peak around 1982 and then started to slowly decline. The advent of clear/ceramic braces brought lingual orthodontics to its lowest level in 1995-1996. After difficulties were discovered when using ceramic braces, i.e. enamel and bracket wing fractures, torque, control, etc.
The use of Lingual braces slowly started to decline. The combination of European and Asian orthodontists (Drs. Didier Fillion, Giusseppe Scuzzo, J.F. Leclerc, Massimo, Ronchin, Kyoto Takemoto, Yasunori Mori, Hitoshi Koyata, Rafi Romano and othersÂ…) has brought Lingual Orthodontics back to stay. The Ormco lingual appliance has evolved from generation to generation. At this stage we are still mostly working with the 7th generation of the Ormco Appliance. Newer prototypes are at different stages of development and we hope to have one ready soon in order to make our technique more accessible to others.
The Takemoto bracket uses a labial to lingual insertion slot to avoid the use of double over-ties. This bracket is soon to be released by Ormco. It is also offsets gingivally and avoids the needs for placing cuspid offsets in the archwire. This prototype is meant to be our first Lingual Straight Wire Appliance (SWL).
The Stealth bracket recently released by American Orthodontics is smaller in size, therefore decreases the amount of speech interference and increases the patient's comfort. It has the potential of being a self-ligating bracket.