CLINICAL AND RADIOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF THE PROBLEMS OCCURED DUE TO INAPPROPRIATE TREATMENT OF A PATIENT WITH ANTERIOR OPEN BITE: A MALPRACTICE CASE

Abstract

During practices in health care, patients could be seriously harmed by either conscious or unconscious wrong approaches of the clinicians. In this report, we discuss a malpractice case and the results of the malpractice on an adult female patient with anterior open bite. A 23-year-old female patient was admitted to our hospital of faculty of dentistry complaint with anterior open bite and toothache. Patient history revealed that 2 years ago posterior teeth were shortened by a clinician without a prosthetic restoration until her anterior open bite disappeared. However not only the problem relapsed but also the shortened teeth needed root canal treatment which are also done by another clinician. Besides it has been learned that temporomandibular joint problems occur after these treatments. Thorough clinical and radiological examinations, it was decided that patient needs a multidisciplinary problems which must be solved together with departments of orthodontic, endodontics, restorative dentistry, prosthetic, oral and maxillofacial surgery and implantology. Indeed only an orthodontic and surgical treatment was generally enough to treat anterior open bite cases, as a result of malpractice this case get complicated which needs very complex treatments. The treatment method performed by the clinician for treatment of anterior open bite, both ignored the morphological, functional, ethological facts of orthodontic treatments for such patients and also led to dental pain, damage and loss of function. This kind of an approach does not correspond with any ethical, scientific, or esthetical criteria.