Abstract: PURPOSE: To evaluate the influence of self-ligating and conventional brackets on dental arch width in non-extraction treatment. METHODS: Cochrane library, ScienceDirect, PubMed, CBM, CNKI, VIP, Wanfang Database and Google scholar were searched from the date of their establishment to May.2013,to find clinical trials about dental arch form changes in non-extraction treatment with self-ligating and conventional brackets. The quality of the included studies was assessed by two reviewers independently, and Meta analysis was performed using Sata10.0 software package. RESULTS: Finally’ 8 studies including 364 patients were identified. The results of meta analysis showed there were significant difference between self-ligating and conventional brackets in the upper first premolar width change [WMD=0.724,95%CI(0.288,1.160);PU﹤0.01], lower first molar width change [WMD=0.564,95%CI(0.219,0.909);PL﹤0.01] and upper incisors inclination changes. CONCLUSIONS: Current clinical evidence suggests that there is more increment of the dental width in upper first premolars and the lower first molars using self-ligating brackets than conventional brackets, and self-ligating brackets can superiorly control upper incisor inclination. The results need to be verified via larger and higher quality trial.

Key words: Self-ligating brackets, Non-extraction treatment, Dental arch width, Meta analysis