Possible Advantages of Self-Ligating Brackets: From Claims to Evidence, a Literature Review

Self-ligating brackets are ligature-less brackets with the mechanical device built into them to close edgewise slot. It was claimed that self-ligating brackets (SLBs) have advantages over conventional-ligating brackets brackets (CLBs). The most claimed advantageous feature is reduced friction between the archwire and the bracket and full archwire engagement, resulting in faster alignment and space closure. Greater arch expansion with less incisor proclination, also faster ligation, reduced number of visits and less pain is mentioned as the beneficial features of SLBs in different articles. In this review article, we compared SLBs with CBs in aspect of resistance to sliding, speed of archwire ligation, quality of alignment and amount of pain during treatment base on the most recent articles published in literature. We concluded that although self-ligating brackets are proved to have some advantages over conventional brackets, but more studies are needed to discard doubts about using them, routinely.