THE EDITOR'S CORNER

It is always a source of excitement when something new comes out in our field. It is that kind of atmosphere that accompanies the announcement that plastic brackets bonded directly to teeth are commercially available.

It remains to be seen whether this new product will be universally applicable in everyone's hands. We certainly hope that it will. Orthodontic bands have been a necessary evil with obvious detriments. On the other hand, the banded bracket has served us well. The bands have certainly been improved over the years. The advent of the preformed band was a major step forward. The saving in time and effort to the profession was enormous. It made fitting of difficult and incompletely erupted teeth easier and possible earlier than before. Preformed bands made the profession aware of the frequency of mismatches in tooth size. When bands were well fitted, well placed, and well cared for, they made possible a high level of orthodontic achievement. We should not count them out yet.

If we have, indeed, finally reached the age of the bonded bracket, we will have witnessed the achievement of a breakthrough of major proportions in orthodontics. It is conceivable that the science of adhesives has been able to accomplish this. We will know better when enough of these bonded brackets have been in use by enough men on enough cases.