On November 23rd and 24th, 2012 the 2nd Scientific Congress of the German Society for Aligner Orthodontics (DGAO) took place in Cologne. On the last weekend in November, well over 450 participants followed the invitation of the German Society for Aligner Orthodontics, not the Cologne fool's call, but to attend the 2nd Scientific Congress of the DGAO in the venerable Gürzenich in Cologne.
This time the Gürzenich did not host one of the notorious Cologne carnival sessions as usual, but provided the appropriate, stylish setting for the largest manufacturer-independent orthodontic specialist event in Europe, which for two days was exclusively devoted to aligner therapy. 32 internationally recognized speakers and a total of 19 exhibitors from the manufacturing industry made sure in a comprehensive program that the current status of aligner orthodontics was shown to both clinical practitioners and scientifically committed colleagues.
After the welcome by the DGAO Vice President Dr. Boris Sonnenberg, the well-known accounting specialist Heike Herrmann (Cologne), followed by the lawyer Michael Zach (Mönchengladbach), who presented the legal aspects of the current GOZ with a special focus on aligner treatment.
Sufficiently strengthened by a welcome buffet from the main sponsor Align Technology, the participants experienced the opening of the scientific program by the conference president Dr. Julia Haubrich welcoming the first speaker and at the same time the President of the DGAO Prof. em. dr Rainer-Reginald Miethke (Doha/Qatar). In his lecture, Professor Miethke posed the question: "Aesthetics - what is that actually?" and after a very richly illustrated and entertaining presentation postulated the thesis: "Aesthetics is what the patient understands by it - the orthodontist can advise cautiously".
Align Technology's Research Director, John Morton, traveled all the way from San José, California/USA to present the second lecture "Science in Every Smile". He explained the high technological development effort and the biomechanical mode of action of the SmartForce™ attachments of the Invisalign® system in the current G3/G4 version.
Scientific studies on tooth movement and the associated root resorption in the context of different force applications through aligner therapy were carried out by Professor Dr. Gernot Göz (Tübingen) presented in detail. The speakers Prof. Dr. Christoph Bourauel, Mareike Simon and Ludger Keilig reported from their Cologne-Bonn working group in complex studies on the efficiency of tooth movements through Invisalign®. The preliminary, biomechanical and clinical investigations are unique in this comprehensive form, so this research group together with Dr. Jörg Schwarze was awarded a prize of €14.000 by the German Society for Aligner Orthodontics in recognition of and special support for science in the field of aligner therapy.
The Zurich orthodontist Dr. Marco Tribò presented the use of aligners to solve reconstructive problems and also shared the clinical tips from Dr. Schwarze, who pointed out new indications for approximal contact point reduction in his presentation, was addressed to the practitioner.
dr Wajeeh Khan (Hamm) used impressive clinical examples to show the general limits of aligner therapy with his orthocaps® system, emphasizing in particular the advantages of a soft aligner material. The lecture by Niels Hulsink (Netherlands) on the subject of early myofunctional treatment of children also dealt with soft elastomers. Priv.-Doz. dr habil. Benedikt Wilmes from the University of Düsseldorf.
In a joint lecture by Prof. Dr. TeaWeon Kim (Seoul/Korea) and Dr. Nils Stucki (Bern/Switzerland), the wide range of indications of the newly developed eCligner® 3D digital system was presented to the auditorium on the basis of remarkable and numerous clinical cases, which due to its fit can completely do without the use of attachments.
The importance of individualized attachments, especially that of the newly developed SmartForceTM generation, was presented by Dr. Thomas Drechsler (Wiesbaden) in his clinical presentation about influencing the vertical dimension with Invisalign®, while Dr. Werner Schupp (Cologne) emphasized the importance of static and dynamic occlusion in orthodontics in his presentation.
dr In just over 15 minutes, Boris Sonnenberg (Stuttgart) managed to give an overview of his ten years of experience with Invisalign® treatment with one selected case study per year. And also the approach of Dr. Julia Haubrich (Cologne) on the combination of the Carrière Distalizer in Invisalign® therapy met with great interest.
In addition, the advantages of numerous other aligner systems, such as CA® CLEAR-ALIGNER or the eClear mtm® aligner system from Dr. Knut Thedens (Bremen) and Dr. Roland Jonkman (Netherlands) shown. And also the tireless professor Dr. Rolf Hinz from Herne took the opportunity to personally present the interesting idea of developing a screw-activated aligner.
Two from Dr. Elena Krieger (University of Mainz) presented scientific studies on apical root resorption and resolution of anterior crowding and by Prof. Dr. Alexander Vardimon (Tel Aviv/Israel) postulated evidence-based guidelines for three other studies on Invisalign® treatments, rounding off the scientific part of the congress.
The event, which was extremely successful according to the audience, ended with interesting contributions from Dr. Gernot Heine and Jörg Forsbach from their "bracket-free" practice in Wedemark (near Hanover) and the dentists Dr. Juergen Wahlmann and Dr. Stephan Höfer, who see preparation-free veneers and tooth bleaching as the ideal dental supplement to aligner therapy.
The organizers and participants are already looking forward to the next DGAO Congress in November 2014, again in Cologne.
