The present study aimed to assess the validity and reproducibility of a tripoding reference method for digital study cast superimposition to measure maxillary tooth movement.
This retrospective study used 30 treated orthodontic cases which required premolar extractions. Pre- and post-treatment cephalograms were conventionally superimposed, while digitised study casts were superimposed using point registration-based software (Materialise 3-matic Research 12.0) and a tripoding method. This method involved superimposing the digital study casts using the medial two-thirds of the third palatal rugae, and the bilateral depression of the greater palatine foramen as references. Incisor and molar orthodontic tooth movements in the vertical and horizontal planes were measured using the Pancherz analysis for cephalograms and Materialise 3-matic software for the digitised study casts. Validity and agreement were assessed by a paired
The paired
The tripoding method is a valid and reliable method to superimpose the maxillary study casts for measuring incisor and molar orthodontic movements but it is not interchangeable with the Pancherz analysis.