Flowable Composites in Daily Orthodontic Practice - A Review

With the advancement of adhesive materials and application techniques, orthodontists can now use these materials for various purposes in their regular practice. The scope, limitations, and effectiveness of using flowable composite in the daily orthodontic practice have been discussed. In comparison to other alternative procedures, this paper highlighted several uses of flowable composite in orthodontics that could save both effort and chairside time, as well as stock. Searching without restrictions has been done by two researchers in different databases like PubMed Central, Science Direct, Wiley Online Library, The Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, and Research Gate, and hand searching until October 2021. Following data extraction and excluding the duplicated articles, only 19 full-text articles assessed the uses of flowable composite in orthodontics were considered in this review. In conclusion, flowable composites have been used in various conditions either as a major adhesive material for the orthodontic brackets and lingual retainers (with some limitations) or as an auxiliary attachment and bite raising device. New uses have been added to the previous ones to help orthodontists improve their outcomes. Improving this material's physical, mechanical, and biological properties may increase its orthodontic uses in the future. Augmenting the strength and reducing the micro leakage will add more flowable composite to orthodontic bracket adhesive materials.