KIT FOR MANUFACTURING CUSTOMIZED ORTHODONTIC ARCH WIRE AND METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING ORTHODONTIC ARCH WIRE USING SAME |
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申请号 | EP15899012.7 | 申请日 | 2015-11-18 | 公开(公告)号 | EP3326569A1 | 公开(公告)日 | 2018-05-30 |
申请人 | Lee, Jong Ho; | 发明人 | Lee, Jong Ho; | ||||
摘要 | A customized orthodontic archwire fabrication kit and a method of fabricating an orthodontic archwire using the same are disclosed. The orthodontic archwire fabrication kit according to the present disclosure comprises: a jig base formed by perforating the pairs of inner fastening holes and outer fastening holes corresponding to the positions of teeth on a dental setup model of a patient; a jig comprising at one end a first head through which a first through hole is penetrated, at the other end a second head through which a second through hole is penetrated, and a body connecting the first head and the second head and having a wire ligation slot recessed on a portion of the top of the body; a fixing screw corresponding to the dimensions of the first through hole and inner fastening hole; and a fixture corresponding to the dimensions of the second through hole and outer fastening hole. By applying heat in a furnace after the nitinol wire is ligated to and fixed in the jig's wire ligation slot, a custom orthodontic archwire will be created. |
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权利要求 | |||||||
说明书全文 | The present disclosure relates to a custom orthodontic archwire and method of making same, and more particularly, to a method for fabricating the custom orthodontic archwire from a wire of nitinol material which requires baking at a high temperature. Orthodontia narrowly refers to a treatment for the correction of irregularly aligned teeth, and broadly to a treatment that corrects various skeletal incompatibilities in the teeth and mouth that may occur during the growth process, in order to have the teeth perform their normal functions. In the conventional practice of orthodontia, the treatment is performed by attaching brackets to teeth and ligating an orthodontic archwire so that the position, tilting or direction of the teeth is aligned by the restoring force of an archwire. In recent years, customized orthodontic techniques have been introduced wherein a set-up model is made for a patient's ideal tooth condition and then a bracket position and a wire shape are designed using a computer software. 3M INNOVATIVE PROPERTIES COMPANY, H32, and Guangzhou Riton Biomaterial are known to have patents on customized orthodontic technologies. For example, a technique of acquiring the shape of a archwire corresponding to a patient's tooth position and fabricating a customized archwire for lingual orthodontics composed of one or more segments was introduced in 3M Innovative Properties Company's patent, ORTHODONTIC ARCHWIRES WITH REDUCEDINTERFERENCE AND RELATED METHODS( Meanwhile, a titanium alloy or stainless steel wire is often used as an orthodontic archwire. Among the titanium alloys, nitinol, an alloy of nickel and titanium, is a typical shape memory alloy widely used for orthodontia because of its superior resilience. Nitinol alloy, when heated to a temperature of 500 ° C or higher, will change its atomic arrangement in its crystals and its original shape will be fixed, thereby showing its restoring force to return to its original fixed shape. In the above-mentioned In a patent SYSTEM FOR CNC-MACHINING FIXTURES TO SET ORTHODONTIC ARCHWIRES ( Although this technique suggests a method for making a customized archwire of nitinol material, there is still an issue that its fabrication cost is greatly increased because a fixture is to be individually fabricated by a CNC machine for each patient, and that the quality of a final product will be deteriorated if a wire is not fully legated to a fixture, causing detachment from the fixture during the heat application to the wire.
The object of the present disclosure is to solve the problems of the related art as described above, provide a kit for fabricating a customized orthodontic archwire of nitinol material and a method of fabricating a customized orthodontic archwire using the same. In particular, it is directed to providing a method of fabricating an economical, customized orthodontic archwire by securing the most usable parts for general purposes. method of making an orthodontic archwire using a customized tooth orthodontic archwire fabrication kit in the present disclosure to achieve said objects comprises:
The stage of determining the location of the pair of an inner fastening hole and an outer fastening hole of the jig base 10, comprising:
In the stage wherein the pair of an inner fastening hole and an outer fastening hole is perforated at determined positions on the jig base, the number of the pairs of inner fastening holes and outer fastening holes to be perforated is equivalent to the number of maxillary or mandibular teeth of a patient. In the stage wherein a second through hole is aligned with an outer fastening hole, the second head of each jig is sequentially moved to adjust its position while the first head of each jig is fixed to its corresponding inner fastening hole, so that the second through hole can be aligned with the outer fastening hole. A customized orthodontic fabrication kit□ in the present disclosure to achieve said objects is provided with a jig base formed by perforating the pairs of inner fastening holes and outer fastening holes corresponding to the positions of teeth on a set-up model of a patient and others comprising:
Said fixing screw has a screw head with a radius longer than a distance between the wire ligation slot and the edge of the first through hole. nner fastening holes 11 are located on the lingual side of the dental setup model of a patient and outer fastening holes are located in the buccal side, respectively. he volume of the second head of said jig is bigger than that of the first head. According to the present disclosure, it is possible to fabricate a customized orthodontic archwire without using expensive CNC equipment, thereby greatly increasing and improving the economic efficiency of orthodontia. Not only improved is the workability in the process of fixing the nitinol wire to the jig and fine-tuning its position, but the precision and quality of a final archwire is also greatly improved because a wire is fixed, not departed, for a precise shape in the heating process.
Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to preferred embodiments of accompanying drawings, wherein a reference numeral refers to the same element throughout the following description. Throughout the detailed description or claims, unless explicitly described to the contrary, the word "include" and variations such as "includes" or "including" will be understood to the inclusion of stated elements but not the exclusion of any other elements. Hereinafter, referring to The present disclosure relates to a fabrication kit for producing a customized wire conforming to a tooth setup model, and more desirably to production equipment for making into a desired shape a shape memory alloy wire having a specific shape by baking at a high temperature. In particular, the present disclosure can be used in the fabrication of a customized orthodontic archwire through the baking of angular-shape nitinol wire. The customized orthodontic archwire fabrication kit according to the present disclosure shown in The number of the jigs 20 is equivalent to the number of teeth on a dental setup model, whose position is determined according to the positions of brackets on the dental setup model. In The jig base 10 is formed by perforating a plurality of inner fastening holes 11 and outer fastening holes 12 on the upper surface thereof. The holes do not necessarily pass through the jig base 10 and the holes can be perforated up to a depth sufficient to fix the jig 20. As each jig 20 corresponds to a pair of inner and outer fastening holes 11 and 12, the inner fastening hole 11 and the outer fastening hole 12 are preferably provided in pair. Each of the pairs of an inner fastening hole 11 and an outer fastening hole 12 corresponds to each of teeth' positions on the dental set-up model, respectively. More specifically, the movement path of a wire is determined according to the position of a bracket on the dental set-up model, and the position of each jig 20 is determined for a wire ligation slot 231formed on a plurality of jigs 20 to be on a movement path. The positions of an inner fastening hole 11 and an outer fastening hole 12 are located according to the position of a jig 20. More specifically, the inner fastening holes 11 are located on the lingual side of a dental setup model, and the outer fasteners 12 are located on the buccal side. As illustrated in the embodiment of The jig 20 has a structure in which a first head 21 and a second head 22on the both ends of a body 23 are opposite to each other. A first head 21 is located at one end of the body 23, and a first through hole 211 vertically penetrated at the center. A second head 22 is located at the other end of the body 23 and a second through hole 221 is vertically penetrated at the center. In a preferable embodiment, the first through hole 211 and the second through hole 221 are provided in a direction perpendicular to the upper surface of the jig base 10. In a preferable embodiment, the body 23 may have a cross-sectional shape that is thinner and longer than the first head 21 or the second head 22. A wire ligation slot 231 is recessed in a portion on the upper end of the body 23. In a preferable embodiment, the cross section of the wire ligation slot 231 has the same as that of the wire. For example, a recess in the shape of a rectangular parallelepiped having a length and width of 0.18 inches may be formed in a portion on the upper end of the body 23. By doing so, a wire can be tightly ligated to each wire ligation slot 231. In a preferable embodiment, a wire ligation slot 231 may be formed closer to a first head 21. This is to cover and fix a wire with the screw head 31 of a fixing screw 30 as described later. A customized orthodontic archwire fabrication kit according to the present disclosure is provided with a fixing screw 30 corresponding to the dimensions of a first through hole 211 and an inner fastening hole 11. The first through hole 211 may or may not have threads formed therein, and may have a width to which the fixing screw 30 can be inserted. The inner fastening hole 11 is formed with internal threads, which is engaged with threads formed upon the exterior of a fastening screw 30 to be tightened. The radius of the screw head 31 of a fixing screw 30 has a dimension longer than the distance between a wire ligation slot 231 and the edge of a first through hole 211. That is, when the fixing screw 30 is inserted into the first through hole 211, the screw head 31 of the fixing screw 30 will cover at least part of the upper surface of the wire ligation slot 231. When a wire is inserted into the wire ligation slot 231 and then the fixing screw 30 is fastened to an inner fastening hole 11 on the jig base 10, the wire is fixed so as to prevent the wire from being detached. In a preferable embodiment, a fixture 40 has a rod shape and has a diameter corresponding to the dimensions of a second through hole 221 and an outer fastening hole 12. Threads are not formed in the fixture 40, and is inserted into the second through hole 221 and the outer fastening hole 12 at the same time to fix a jig 20. The fixture 40 may have the same length and diameter as the fixing screw 30, but in a preferable embodiment, it may have a slightly larger size so that it can be easily gripped for insertion by an operator. As shown in As described above, as inner fastening holes 11 are arranged in the lingual side and outer fastening holes 12 are arranged in the buccal side, the intervals between inner fastening holes 11 are somewhat narrower, but the intervals between outer fastening holes (12) are larger than those of the inner fastening holes. Therefore, the volume of a second head 22 can be designed to be larger than that of a first head 21 for easy operation. As illustrated in Hereinafter, referring to The method of fabricating an orthodontic archwire according to the present disclosure can be implemented by using the custom orthodontic archwire fabrication kit as described above. As shown in First, the dental setup model of a patient is prepared. (S111) Dental setup models are typically made in the conventional practice of orthodontia, and can be created by cutting teeth from the model of mandibular and maxillary dental arches with malocclusion and rearranging them to their ideal position. Then, locations for bracket attachment are determined from a patient's dental setup model. (S112) In recent years, the mounting positions of brackets have been set on a computer program by reading a dental setup model into 3D data. A fixing process for determining locations for bracket attachment can also be used using prior-art techniques. Once the mounting positions of brackets are determined, the bending points and angles of a wire will be determined from a line passing through bracket slots. (S113) Using a computer program, the coordinates of the line connecting the bracket slots can be obtained and the bending angles and points of the wire will be determined in consideration of a patient's oral condition. A computer program, the present process, or a prior art can be used to set the bending angles and points of the wire. However, according to a prior art a pre-fabricated wire is directly bent using a device when the bending points and angles of the wire are determined, while according to the present disclosure the bending points are determined using a separate production kit. When the bending points and angles of the wire are determined, the locations of jigs 20 can be determined thereby. The wire ligated in the wire ligation slots 231 of the jigs 20 must be bent according to the determined bending locations and angles. As the wire ligation slots 231 of the jigs 20 must be placed in each exact coordinate of bracket slots or the line connecting each wire ligation slot 231 of the jigs 20 must be overlapped with that connecting each bracket slot, the locations of the jigs 20 can be determined thereafter. Once the locations of jigs 20 are determined, the locations corresponding to the first through holes 211 and second through holes 221 of the jigs 20 can be determined as the locations of inner fastening holes 11 and the outer fastening holes 12. (S114) When the locations of the pairs of inner fastening holes 11 and outer fastening holes 12 are respectively determined, each pair of the inner fastening holes 11 and the outer fastening holes 12 will be perforated at a determined position on the jig base 10. (S120) pairs in correspondence with anterior teeth and posterior teeth are formed, respectively. That is, when the pairs of inner fastening holes 11 and outer fastening holes 12 are prepared as described above, first through holes 211 of the jig 20 are aligned along the inner fastening holes 11. After a wire is ligated to a wire ligation slot 231, a fixing screw 30 will be passed through the first through hole 211 and have an inner fastening hole 11engage with it. As a result, the screw head 31 of a fixing screw 30 covers the top of a wire and have the wire fixed. This procedure will be repeated for all inner fastening holes 11. After the completion of the procedure, the first head 21 of the jig 20 is fixed by the screw head 31 to each of the inner fastening holes 11 of the jig base 10, the wire is ligated to the wire 231. Then while a second head 22 is held by the hand, second through holes 221 are sequentially aligned with outer fastening holes 12. That is, the location of a second head 22is adjusted, with a fixing screw 30 as a rotation axis. Thereafter, a fixture 40 is inserted into the outer fastening hole 12 through the second through hole 221. (S140) After this procedure is repeated for each jig, each jig 20 will be fixed to the jig base 10 in its respective position, and the wire will be naturally fixed in a bent state according to the angle and position of the wire ligation slot 231, as shown in After that, the jig base 10 is put into a heating furnace and heated (S150). In the preferred embodiment, the jig base 10 is heated at about 500°C for a predetermined time, thereby making a wire of nitinol material memorizing its bent shape formed by the jig 20. After removing a jig base 10 from the heating furnace, cool it at room temperature, and remove the wire from the jig base (S160). As illustrated in From the embodiments given above, the technical idea of the present disclosure has been described. It is self-evident that a modified embodiment can be readily implemented by those skilled in the art that this disclosure belongs to. Also, although not explicitly shown or described, various modifications, including the modification of the technical idea of the present disclosure, from the description of the present disclosure can be made by those skilled in the art. However, those modifications are still within the scope of the present invention. It is to be understood that the disclosure is not limited to the disclosed embodiments described with reference to the accompanying figures, but, on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit of the scope of the appended claims. The present disclosure can be applied to the field of orthodontics.
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