Address H-1088 Budapest, Szentkirályi u. 47.
Tel.: (+36-1) 318-0011; (+36-1) 266-8269; (+36-1)318-7187 
Fax: (+36-1) 266-8269
Email: gyerfog.fogszab.klinika@semmelweis.hu

Director: Assoc. Prof. Noémi Katinka Rózsa DMD, MSc, PhD.

Background The Department was founded in 1959, as the Department of Paediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics, consisting of two parts: the Paedodontic Department and the Orthodontic Department.

Profile The Department is responsible for teaching preclinical orthodontics, paedodontics and orthodontics. Through treatment, it provides practical demonstration and active practical work to dental undergraduates.

The aim of preclinical orthodontics is preparing of dental students for practical education of orthodontic health care, focusing on the development of manual skills. Eighteen dental units are available for dental students and eighteen for the colleagues working at the Department.

Education The practical and theoretical teaching comprises alterations and diseases in primary and permanent dentition, in supporting structure of teeth and of malocclusions in childhood, as well as of their aetiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, prevention and treatment. Pedodontic practice focuses on teaching undergraduate and postgraduate dental students through everyday screening of children from different local schools. During practice students examine and treat schoolchildren under the supervision of the Department staff.

In orthodontic practices students deal with making diagnoses and treatment plans and have the opportunity to take part in orthodontic treatments (changing wires and ligatures, take impressions, etc.). These subjects are taught over two semesters during the fifth year.

Preclinical orthodontics is taught in the first semester of the fourth year. Practical teaching comprises the presentation of current appliance types on a sample, or with multimedia methods. The activation of the appliances, wire and arch bending, bracket bonding with the help of typodonts and phantoms are performed.

Health Care Apart from basic dental care, the complex treatment of traumatic injuries of the teeth is carried out by the Department. The treatment of handicapped children under general anaesthesia and dental alterations associated with general and systemic diseases are part of patient care at the Department. Up-to-date orthodontic methods of treatment are also applied.

Research Some of the Department’s research projects are: studying complex therapy for cleft lip and palate; epidemiological studies in different populations (e.g. prevalence of caries and orthodontic anomalies, oral hygiene, sociological aspects); stomatological aspects of systemic illnesses; dental erosion; hypodontia associated with MSX1 AND PAX9 polymorphisms in the Hungarian population; TMJ dysfunction; examination of root-crown ratio; testing of medicaments and new dental materials; new developed orthodontic treatments as well as modified light-wire techniques, Ricketts, and Damon techniques; adult treatment methods; cooperation with other dental specialities; and interceptive orthodontics.