IPR in Kids: What’s the Right Age?

Have you ever wondered why you might need to do IPR in kids and when the right age for this procedure might be? In many cases, mixed dentition cases can be among the trickiest to fix since it’s not always clear what you should be offering as part of your dentist consultations.
What is IPR?
IPR is a procedure called interproximal reduction, which serves to help reduce a tooth’s width by removing very small amounts of enamel. This procedure can be completed relatively easily by an experienced dentist, but it’s important to consider the age of your patient before you get started.
When Should Patients be Offered IPR For the First Time
Here at Straight Smile LLC, we recommend you avoid offering IPR for kids since there’s generally not much need to do this. Children who need IPR will often have tooth crowding cases. However, these cases can be easily addressed with other techniques such as arch expansion, proclination (based on a CEPH), sequential digitalization, etc.
Generally, you may want to avoid this technique for children except when you’ve already run it through the Bolton simulator and the child needs 0.2mm per site. However, there can still be exceptions to this.
In the end, it’s worth getting professional support on a case-by-case basis. Luckily, our team here at Straight Smile LLC can help you find the proper techniques for your patients.