Treatment outcome in a graduate orthodontic clinic using the American Board of Orthodontics grading system.

Since 1999, the American Board of Orthodontics (ABO) has used the objective grading system (OGS) to grade clinical case reports; the ABO also encourages prospective candidates to use the system. Ninety-two cases that satisfied the specifications of 6 of the ABO's malocclusion categories were selected from the files of 500 consecutively completed patients in the graduate orthodontic clinic at the University of Illinois at Chicago; this was called the university group. A comparison group of 32 cases previously presented to the ABO was collected from 5 clinicians in the Chicago area who had passed the ABO examination and become board-certified between 1984 and 2000; this was called the ABO group. Fourteen of the 32 cases in the ABO group were presented to the ABO after implementation of the OGS; these were also analyzed separately. Overall, the ABO group lost fewer points (had lower OGS scores) than did the university group (P <.05); the ABO group comprised a highly selected sample. The university group had significantly (P <.05) better scores for root parallelism, whereas the ABO group had significantly better scores for occlusal contacts and overjet scores, possibly reflecting settling after appliance removal. Finishing in the anterior segment and the second molar region was better in the ABO group. Orthodontists are good at correcting spaces in the arch and are deficient in placing adequate torque in the buccal segments. No differences were found in OGS scores among the 6 malocclusion categories. This study suggests how university cases could be completed to a higher level of quality and how other samples could be evaluated to raise the level of orthodontic treatment outcome.