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Measuring airway with a CT before and after appliance therapy is very misleading and dangerous

Another appliance company for apnea. I believe its over 150 of them now. This one promoted at invisalign summit. I have no issues with the appliances. 300 would be even better, but what drives me nuts is when companies and shills show this before and after on CT’s and how the airway opens after treatment. It is absolutely fraudulent to make such claims and to measure success in this manner. It is very misleading and can get a lot of people in a lot of trouble.

I’m a big fan of CT scans. I don’t even take fmx any more. It’s CT and bitewings most of the time. Periapical in posterior maxilla is useless to me. But this non-sense has to stop. It starts with donut face stuffing fatsos making up conditions that don’t exist and that it perpetuates through the industry as the rest try and catch up. next thing you know everyone is claiming success with their device by showing before and after CT scans as their measured form of success.

Patient positioning can have an impact on this airway measurement. Tongue positioning does too. Swallowing can. So many factors in a 15 second scan can contribute to it as well.

let me make it simple for every dentist here to understand this: NO ONE can claim that the airway improved with sleep appliance therapy based on the measurement of airway difference between pre and post op CT’s. It is absolute fraud, dangerous, and it falls under the federal false claims act.