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The literature regards the surgical-orthodontic treatment of ectopic canine as being the optimal therapy. This treatment, however, often takes a long time and disturbances in the functional occlusion often occur after treatment is ended. For this reason it was decided to evaluate the treatment's success taking into consideration age at time of treatment, angulation, and functional occlusion. The post-treatment examinations of 66 patients up to five years after treatment reveal above all a correlation between treatment success and age at the time treatment begins. In addition patients with class II/2 and tooth aplasia were identified as constituting a risk group. These malocclusions, therefore, are a sign that there is a risk of ectopic canines. The occlusion type in laterotrusion movement provides group guidance. Beginning treatment after age 25 years should be critically evaluated, because the treatment period is prolonged.

The removal of lower wisdom teeth is one of the most common procedures in oral surgery. Postoperative complications have been reported in over 10% of the cases, of those being 8.5% due to infection. In our Department, the open wound healing method has been used routinely for more than 50 years. In this article we present a retrospective and a prospective study comparing the open and closed wound healing techniques after lower third molar removal. The retrospective study dealt with 908 consecutive cases of the year 1991 in which all postoperative complications were analysed. The prospective controlled randomized study dealt with 300 cases in which the open and the half closed wound treatment was compared. Preoperative data including the papillary bleeding index and the postoperative incidence of infections were analysed. In the open wound healing group, a complication rate of 3%, with less than 1% being infectious, was observed. In the group where a semi-closed procedure was performed, a complication rate of more than 13% with 6% infections was found. It could be demonstrated that poor oral hygiene influences the postoperative infection rate, especially in cases where the semi-closed wound healing was used, whereas open wound healing is less affected by the status of oral hygiene. In both methods approximately three postoperative consultations were necessary. Based on these results, the open wound healing method after surgical removal of lower wisdom teeth is advocated.

This paper draws attention to problems of assessment and interpretation of frequencies of the retention/displacement of teeth (impacted teeth and germ impaction), presents diagnostic criteria, comments on the incidence and frequency of retention/displacement and other disturbances in recent probands, lists the order in which teeth are affected, and discusses the causes of these disturbances. Reasons for the existing lack of anthropological data on the subject are suggested, and the potential usefulness of representative surveys of large samples of prehistoric populations is stressed.