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At recent American Association of Orthodontists lectures and in the orthodontic literature over the past several years, I have become increasingly interested when different orthodontists from Scandinavia and other European countries have described the clinical outcomes after autotransplantation of developing premolars to the maxillary anterior region in difficult traumatic injury cases with accidental loss of one or several incisors. Is there any relevant practical difference between such transplants and replacement of lost incisors with single-tooth implants? Is the surgical procedure much more sensitive and difficult for the transplants than for the implants? Why is the autotransplantation technique not more commonly used
in North America? —Thanos Athanasiou, Athens, Greece
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