Effectiveness of a myofunctional therapy program in the treatment of mouth breathing in patients with dental malocclusion: a pilot clinical trial.

Thirteen people took part, nine treated and four untreated, and the authors describe the study as a small pilot. The pre-study calculation had asked for eight and five, so the untreated group was under its target. There was no sham therapy, so the study cannot tell whether the programme itself helped or whether the extra clinical attention and the expectation of getting better did. The control group got worse on several measures over the three months rather than staying the same, which makes the gap between the groups hard to read as a treatment effect. Home exercises were part of the programme but adherence was not systematically tracked, only self-reported and observed in sessions, so the contribution of the home routine is unknown. Follow-up stopped three months after the sessions, so nothing is known about whether the changes last longer than that. All the participants already had an adequate nasal airway and were free of obstruction, which the authors say may be why the nasal airflow measures were not sensitive enough to detect improvement. The therapy was delivered by the researcher in charge of the study, and the paper reports no separate check that the treating therapist stayed consistent across patients.

The authors declare no financial support and no conflicts of interest. They acknowledge CAPES, the Brazilian government agency that funds graduate studies, for supporting postgraduate work at the University of São Paulo School of Dentistry.

Do not read this as proof that myofunctional therapy fixes mouth breathing. Only 13 people took part, just nine received the programme, there was no sham treatment, and the untreated group got worse rather than staying level. The outcome closest to how patients feel, their oral health-related quality of life, did not improve at all.