American Association of Orthodontists Foundation Endowment Fund Campaign

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR American Association of Orthodontists Foundation Endowment Fund Campaign To the Editor: The AAO Foundation Endowment Fund Campaign is of vital importance to our specialty of orthodontics. As clinicians who are involved in orthodontic education, we

believe it is extremely important that our programs in advanced orthodontics be supported in their activities of both education and research. Adequate funding in these two areas is a necessity; all programs lack, in varying degrees,, sufficient funds to accomplish their mission as they would desire. As a means to help our schools in their efforts to produce the kind of orthodontists we wish in our specialty, the AAOF is pledged to give the financial aid that can materially assist orthodontic programs in their educational and research activities. In addition, the AAOF can aid orthodontic education by helping fund grants and fellowships to persons who wish to become orthodontic teachers. To accomplish these worthy objectives, orthodontic education must have the help that all of us can offer by pledging our financial support. Many graduate programs have alumni support organizations that donate significant funds to a particular graduate department. These alumni funds are, in most cases, "designated" for certain departmental needs. The AAOF effort is very broad in scope. The AAOF funds, while of benefit to individual departments because they will fund specific research, will benefit our specialty as a whole. We all have an indebtedness to our specialty for what it has given us. A pledge to the AAOF is a tangible way of showing our gratitude for what we have received and a method of discharging our indebtedness. Faustin N. Weber Emeritus Professor Rolf G. Behrents Professor and Chairman James L. Vaden Assistant Professor The University of Tennessee

Comment on T M J case report To the Editor: The article by W.S. Kirk in the April 1992 issue, "Case Report. Failure of Surgical Orthodontics Due To Tem-

poromandibular Joint Internal Derangement and Postsurgical Condylar Resorption," prompted me to the following remarks. The documentation of "condylar resorption" in the very suggestive title consists of three different imaging techniques: conventional panoramic radiography (educated guess) presurgically, and corrected axial tomography with magnetic resonance imaging postsurgically. Therefore the presurgical and postsurgical documentation simply depicts different things, and the "failure of surgical orthodontics" is not substantiated at all. Dr. Kirk states on page 375 "The purpose of this article is to relate examples of condylar resorption as a result of possible AVN orOCD,"whereAVN = avascular necrosis and OCD = osteochondritis desiccans. A cause and effect chain of reasoning is not supported by case reports. At page 380 we read "With few published case reports, AVN of the mandibular condyle may be a rare condition." In 1932 Steinhardt presented a new condylar condition, exactly alike this case report, which he labeled "arthritis deformans." Ever since, this condylar condition has increasingly become the subject of ardent research. At present it is even impossible to cope with the avalanche of publications which eventually resulted from Steinhardt's keen observation. Simultaneously, inventive researchers kept changing the nomenclature as they attached unique terminology to the phenomena studied. As a result, Steinhardt's arthritis deformans is presently known under a plethora of synonyms, AVN and OCD obviously being rela!ively young. It thus may come as no surprise to us that only few published case reports on AVN or OCD exist. The Emperor's new clothes. We can easily make up an analogue for this babel of tongues. For example, if we were planning a trip to St. Petersburg but wanted to know first where on earth this town is situated, it might be handy to remember that a glance at Leningrad on an old map of the no longer existing Soviet Union gives the correct information. Yet there exist few published reports on St. Petersburg at present. With many more examples to cite, this paper may se rve as a rich source for teaching research methods. J.M.H. Dibbets Professor and Chairman Department Orthodontics Marburg, Germany REFERENCES 1. Steinhardt G. Zur Pathologic des Kiefergelenkes. Paradentium 1932;4:111-3. 2. SteinhardtG. Untersuchungenzur Pathologicdes Kiefergelenkes. Paradentium 1932;4:153-9.

Reply I read with great interest the comments of this case report by Professor J. M. H. Dibbets. Contrary to Pro19A