Causes, location, and timing of relapse following rigid fixation after mandibular advancement

The purpose of this study was to evaluate two different groups of patients who underwent bilateral sagittal split osteotomy for mandibular advancement. One group demonstrated no relapse, whereas a second group had documented relapse. The following questions were asked: 1) What factors contribute to relapse? 2) At what site in the mandible is movement seen? and 3) During what period does movement occur? A retrospective lateral cephalometric serial analysis was performed on 50 patients at multiple time intervals. Criteria for a candidate include 1) mandibular advancement surgery with rigid fixation, with or without genioplasty, 2) no maxillary surgery, and 3) relapse of 25% or more of the advancement. Of the 50 patients analyzed, 13 (26%) showed relapse of 25% or more and served as the relapse group. Twelve patients showed no relapse and served as the comparison group. Multiple-regression analysis for the relapse group showed that magnitude of advancement, increasing gonial arc and changing mandibular plane significantly accounted for 84.9% of the variance observed in relapse (P < .001). Repeated-measures ANOVA showed that the majority of relapse occurred in the first 6 weeks after surgery (68%, P < .05). Results of a paired t test showed that a significant change occurred in all the linear and angular measures except SN-AR-GO (P < .05).