13^th Biennial National Orthodontic Congress of the Association of Philippine Orthodontists (APO)

Written by;
Dr. Dennis C. Lim
Chairperson, 13^th congress

The event kicked off with Dr Peter Ngan from West Virginia, USA discussing on orthopedic management for growing children with the topic “40 years of Dentofacial Orthopedics, where are we going from here?”. Dr. Ngan shared the importance of management of patients with skeletal disharmony in all three dimensions with the help of the temporary skeletal anchorage devices. The attendees were given different options in managing young and growing patients.

This was followed by a lecture from Dr. Kai Woh Loh from Singapore, who discussed about orthodontic treatment using aligners with the topic title “Managing Orthodontic Treatment during the Covid-19 Pandemic”. Dr. Loh presented several cases treated perfectly with aligner therapy. He was able to impart to all the attendees the concept of aligner therapy and how the aligners can move teeth to their desired position.

On the second day of the conference, Dr. Chris Chang from Taiwan shared his expertise on self-ligating bracket systems as well as the use of bone screws to help manage very difficult cases. Dr. Chang’s lecture on “Maximizing Self-Ligation Mechanics for Challenging Cases”, featured severe malocclusions that should have been treated with orthognathic surgery. However, these cases were treated using a combination of self-ligating brackets and bone screws.

Last but not least, our very own past president of the APO, Dr. Cynthia P. Quismundo, shared her experiences and expertise on treating different malocclusion with the title “Troubleshooting in Orthodontics”. Dr. Quismundo was able to capture the audience with her different orthodontic cases and how she managed them. After each lecture, attendees were able to interact with all the speakers on an open forum. A post-conference survey drew high ratings from all the participants which made the congress a huge success!