Premature exfoliation or extraction of primary tooth may lead to loss of space due to drifting of the adjacent teeth. This may also lead to undesirable effects, such as impaction of the succedaneous tooth, overeruption of the opposing tooth, and a shift of the midline, with consequent functional impairment. It is prudent to consider space maintenance when primary teeth are lost prematurely. The current study aims to clinically evaluate the effectiveness of space maintainers comparing conventional band and loop space maintainer with glass fiber-reinforced space maintainer following loss of primary teeth in mixed dentition.

A total of 30 children aged 4 to 8 years were randomly assigned into two groups – band-and-loop space maintainer (group I) and glass fiber-reinforced composite (GFRC) space maintainer (group II). Distortion/dislodgment of the loop or the fiber frame, fracture of loop or fiber frame, gingival health, and space loss were evaluated clinically and radiographically at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months interval. Gingival health was assessed by gingival index given by Loe and Silness.

Based on the statistical analysis, overall success rate of group I was found to be 69.2% and of group II was 95.7% (p = 0.026), which was statistically significant.

The GFRC space maintainers showed an overall success rate compared with band-and-loop space maintainers.

Kataria S, Chunawala Y, Morawala A, Jain K, Ambiye A. Clinical Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Glass Fiber-reinforced Composite Space Maintainer vs Band-and-loop Space Maintainer following Loss of Primary Teeth: An in vivo Study. Int J Clin Dent Res 2017;1(1):5-9.