Anterior tooth challenges, part 4: canines in the lateral position.

issue of Dentistry Today and can be found in our archived articles at the Web site dentistrytoday.com. INTRODUCTION At the start of the classic 1960s television show The Twilight Zone, we see a clock floating through black empty space. The unmistakable voice of the show's creator, Rod Serling, states that time is the hidden dimension ; the unknown. Without knowing what will happen in the future, we cross over into The Twilight Zone. Often, dentists do not consider the progression of time in their approach to a pa tient. A compromised treatment plan or a poor choice of treatment (often dictated by the patient) usually leads to more serious problems years down the road. If we could only predict what will happen in time, some of the choices we make would be so much easier. However, dentistry is quite predictable if we respect the tried and true principles of function and aesthetics. Every dental student receives a typodont study model repli-cating the form of ideal teeth. All dental students are taught the principles of a balanced occlusion and the importance of reducing destructive forces to the dentition. This article will illustrate what happens when the elements of time and aging are not considered when making a treatment choice. Very often, something that patients do not see, think is unimportant, or say that doesn't bother them, may come back to haunt them later in life. If we, as dentists, take the approach that people want to look like other humans, and if we plan our cases to the parameters of the typodont study model, our treatment plans become far more predictable through the progression of time. The case presented herein concerns a patient born with congenitally missing lateral incisors. As a teenager, her canines were orthodontically repositioned into the lateral position. At that time, she was young and attractive, and, like many others, believed that she would have " eternal youth. " Little did she realize that aging does happen to everyone; she was about to cross over into The Dental Twilight Zone.