[The results of using extraoral traction in children with a prognathic bite].

Primary and repeated lateral teleroentgenograms of the head of 37 children aged 4-8 with prognathic occlusion were analyzed, recorded on an average in 2 years after employment of a chin sling with extraoral traction. Analysis has shown normalization of the jaws and occlusion in the sagittal plane, resultant from limitation of mesial transposition of the mandible in the skull in the course of facial skeleton growth. This has been achieved at the expense of inhibition of longitudinal growth of the mandibular body and ascending branches more than twofold as against the reference values and was also a result of mandibular shift due to traction and of enhanced vertical transposition of the mandible in the skull due to distal rotation. The principal indications for the employment of chin sling in the management of prognathic occlusion are intensive growth of the mandible or a tendency to such growth, mesial position of the mandible in the skull, and a combination of these disorders, that may be the principal or additional factors contributing to the pathogenesis of this abnormality.