The duration of orthodontic treatment is an important factor for both orthodontists and their patients. Reducing treatment time is one of the today’s most challenging issue in orthodontics, because increased treatment duration has been associated with an increased risk of caries, periodontal problems, prolonged pain as well as a higher risk of root resorption. To combat this, many initiatives have been made in recent years to accelerate orthodontic tooth movement using invasive (surgical) and non-invasive (pharmacological and physical stimulation) approaches along with conventional orthodontic force.

Vibration has been a relatively new field of interest to researchers which increases the rate of orthodontic tooth movement by accelerating the periodontal and bony tissue modelling and remodelling processes with the advantage of minimal side effects in comparison to other methods. Initial studies to evaluate the effect of vibration on orthodontic tooth movement, which were conducted on animals, have shown promising results. Evidence from such animal studies had suggested that cells respond more rapidly to oscillation force as compared to a constant force when they have been subjected to multiple cyclic (vibration) forces. Osteoblasts, osteoclasts, and periodontal ligament fibroblasts are intimately involved in facilitating tooth movement as these cell types are sensitive to perceiving and responding to mechanical signals, and therefore, are targeted by devices that aim at accelerating the movement of teeth.

Various commercial vibratory devices have been designed to provide a cyclic vibrational force of both low and high frequency, which can be directly used by patients. Tooth Masseuse (111 Hz), AcceleDent (30 Hz), and Vpro5 appliances (120 Hz) have been commonly used. Few studies using vibratory devices in orthodontic tooth movement, low frequency devices (30 Hz; 20gf) do not promote tooth movement significantly whereas high frequency devices (120 Hz,111Hz; 6gf,5.2gf) shortens treatment time by enhancing tooth movement. Also, in studies comparing cellular responses in high frequency and low frequency device both caused increased cell proliferation and gene expression in osteoblasts and fibroblasts, but the response to high frequency one was slightly greater than low frequency.Still it’s a topic of controversy that the rate of orthodontic tooth movement is increased more by high frequency vibrations or the low frequency vibrations.

Hence, this current study is done to compare the rate of tooth movement with high frequency and low frequency mechanical vibrations using customized vibratory device and to evaluate root resorption in subjects with fixed conventional orthodontic therapy.