Hard Tissue Evaluation after Microimplant Assisted Rapid Palatal Expansion

● Microimplant-assisted rapid palatal expanders (MARPEs) allow the clinician to achieve transverse skeletal expansion of the palate with minimal flaring of the teeth.1 ● Maxillary expansion directly or indirectly affects the following neighboring structures: the maxilla, mandible, nasal cavity, pharyngeal structures, and the pterygoid processes of the sphenoid bone.2 ● Past studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between increases in nasal cavity width and decreases in nasal airway resistance, which may improve nasal ventilation.4 ● Rapid palatal expansion has been shown to follow a triangular pattern in the frontal plane with the greatest increase at the dental level and the least at the level of the orbits.5 ● Although parallelism of suture opening is not clearly defined by current literature, a parallel pattern of suture opening in the axial view has been observed.