Treatment of Adults with Anterior Mandibular Teeth Crowding: Reliability of Little's Irregularity Index

The attempt of this article was to assess reliability of Little's Irregularity Index (LII) as for stability of the treatment outcomes in adults with crowded mandibular incisors. LII was measured on a digital cast prior to an orthodontic treatment (T1) of the 302 patients thus allowing us to establish the treatment plan, which called for (a) expansion (group 1), interproximal stripping (group 2), or extraction of one of the mandibular incisors. LII was measured after debonding (T2) and a year after retention (T3). Treatment resulted in significant reduction of LII values after treatment, in T1-T2 period in all groups. As for T2-T3 period it brought significant but clinically irrelevant relapse that occurred in groups 1 and 2; group 3 presented with insignificant improvement of occlusion. Conclusively, 30 years after introducing LII it has been a reliable parameter that allows selection of optimal treatment methods, provided that the appropriate ranges of values displaying dentoalveolar discrepancy are obeyed, namely, (1) up to 3 mm: expansion, (2) from 3 to 5 mm: interproximal enamel reduction, and (3) above 5 mm: extraction.