Journal of Baghdad College of Dentistry

Background: The need of the patient for a more reasonable esthetic orthodontic intervention has risen nowadays. Thus,
orthodontists make use of esthetic orthodontic materials like brackets, ligature elastics, and arch wires. The esthetic brackets
come as different forms of materials, such as ceramic brackets, which have their stainability remaining as the most important
consideration for the patients and the orthodontists. This study aimed to compare the staining effects of various staining
materials, including black tea, cigarette smoke and Pepsi, as well as the time effect on the color stability of sapphire ceramic
brackets bonded with three kinds of light cure orthodontic adhesives: Transbond, Resilience and Enlight.
Materials and Methods: Three hundred sixty sapphire brackets were utilized and divided into three different groups (120
brackets per group) based on the type of bonding material. Each group was further subdivided into four subgroups (30 brackets
each) based on the media in which the brackets were fully immersed, including distilled water, black tea, cigarette smoke and
Pepsi. Moreover, each of these subgroups were further subdivided, based on the time of immersion relative to each media, into
3 different smaller subgroups (10 brackets each): one day, 7 days and 14 days with incubation at 37°C. A UV-visible type of
spectrophotometer was utilized in order to perform a light absorption test. ANOVA and post hoc LSD tests were used for
comparison.
Results: The smoke of cigarette appeared to be the highest potent staining type among the tested materials followed by Pepsi
and tea. The staining effects of all kinds of staining materials in relation to the bonded brackets color with all adhesive types
were raised with increased time of immersion.
Conclusion: The patient’s cooperation and habits should be taken into consideration when using sapphire orthodontic brackets.
In addition, the patients should be instructed to decrease the consumption of staining beverages.

Background: Dental caries is generally given the highest priority in national oral health services for adult populations. Yet, there is
no study which has explored the impact on quality of life specifically related to dental caries in samples of dental students. The
purpose of the current study was to assess the impact of caries experience on quality of life among dental students in three
governorates in Iraq.
Materials and Methods: This observational study included 1364 dental students aged 18–22 years old, from three governorates.
Information on quality of life was obtained from a structured, self-administered questionnaire from the students who were willing to
participate in the study. The data was collected, summarized and statistically analyzed. Caries experience in the present study was
determined by the Decayed- Missing Filled Surfaces (DMFS) indexed by WHO in 1997 in which all teeth were examined and all the
third molars were included.
Results: Regarding dental caries and the four Quality of Life domains, in each domain scores, DS component had the highest
contribution to the DMFS followed by the MS component while FS components had the lowest contribution to the index. On the
other hand, DMFS showed the lowest mean among the good scores of all domains and it had the highest mean among the poor type.
Conclusion: The quality of life among dental students is associated with caries severity as the DMFS and its components affected
different domains regarding quality of life.

Background: The grading systems of salivary mucoepidermoid carcinoma depend on different histologic and
morphologic features. The aim of this study was to compare between Auclair and Brandwein systems according to their
histologic criteria, and the type of cell predominant.
Materials and Methods: Twenty-one case included hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) stained tissue slides that were diagnosed
as MEC, originally categorized into low and high grade type regardless of the grading system, have meticulously
undergone histopathologic review. The sample was graded according to criteria owing to Auclair and Brandwein
methods. The predominant type of cells was determined by microscopic examination according to grade of tumor.
Results: Regarding the Auclair method, 10 cases (47.6%) were low grade tumor, 11 cases (52.2%) were high grade type
and none of them were intermediate type. By using Brandwein system for the same sample, 4 cases (19%) were low
grade, 13 cases (61%) were a high grade tumor, and 4 cases (19%) were intermediate type. Even though, for both systems
more than 35% of cases were predominated with epidermoid cells, and <15% showed mucous and intermediate cell
predominance for each, whereas >30% were exhibited a mixed type of tumor cells. However, there was a significant
correlation between the grading systems applied and the type of cell predominance (p-value <0.05).
Conclusion: The number of cases distributed according to Brandwein system was increased as the level of histologic
grade being raised, and the type of cells, which are relatively predominant, may be valuable in determining the histologic
grade of tumors.

Objectives: Although the Frankfort Horizontal (FH) and sella-nasion were routinely used as craniofacial reference planes, the
inter-individual orientations were changeable when related to true horizontal (HOR). Natural head position (NHP) is a
reproducible, standardized position, with the head in an upright posture and eyes focused on a point in the distance at eye level
so that the visual axis is horizontal. The natural head position has importance in anthropological as well as in orthodontic fields,
as this position has a relatively fixed relationship to the true horizontal and vertical planes. However, NHP is clinically not
simple and it takes long time to be recorded, in addition to a deficiency in the tools utilized in the NHP and lack in the staff
training. This paper aims to shed the light on different methods of NHP registration and reproduction.
Data and Sources: A literature review of English articles was performed using PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar to search
for natural head position in orthodontics.
Conclusions: NHP is affected by many factors, and it is different in walking state than in static state. There are various
cephalometric or photographic methods for NHP recording.