Dr Ektor Grammatopoulos and Dr Ashish Dhopatkar from Birmingham Dental School and hospital are researching into the effect of wind instrument playing on malocclusion and contrary to previous research and popular belief amongst musicians and music teachers, they have shown that playing a wind instrument does not affect the position of the teeth.
Dr Ektor Grammatopoulos with Jo Patton from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
The study involved strict inclusion and exclusion criteria and clinical material was obtained from 14 classical orchestras, four jazz bands and three music colleges.
Dr Grammatopoulos has received several awards for this work including the Ivor Whitehead Prize, BDA West Midland Hospital Group and BDA Central Counties Branch Joint Study Day Meeting, The TC White Lecture Award sponsored by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Hawley Russell Prize – first prize for poster presentation at the recent British Orthodontic Society Conference. He will be presenting his findings as an oral presentation at the 7th International Orthodontic Congress in Sydney in 2010.
