List of palatal expanders

This article lists different types of expanders that are available for the process of palatal expansion in the field of orthodontics.

Proponents of tissue-borne expansion believe that more bodily movement and less dental tipping is produced when an acrylic palatal coverage is added to the appliance.

Tooth supported expanders allow the forces to be applied directly to the teeth of maxillary arch instead of the tissue.

Hyrax is also known as the "hygienic appliance" because it does not lead to irritation of tissues due to the absence of palatal acrylic.

MARPE appliances anchor to the palatal vault area of the maxilla using 4-6 mini-screws (or TADs) which allows for expansion in adults as well as prevents tipping as is common in tooth-borne expanders.

Information here may be outdated within 5–10 years as new RCTs, systematic reviews & meta-analysis will be done and they may produce different results then what are stated below.

In 2005 Garib et al.,[5] stated in their study that tooth-borne (Hyrax) and tooth tissue-borne (Haas-type) expanders tended to produce similar orthopedic effects.

In both methods, RME led to buccal movement of the maxillary posterior teeth, by tipping and bodily translation.

Another study performed by Weissheimer et al.,[6] which was a randomized control trial, stated that both the appliances were efficient in correcting a transverse maxillary deficiency.

However, a study published by Lagravere et al.[8] in 2010, stated that there was no difference between the bone-borne and tooth-borne expansion devices.