Unfortunately, people will always try to produce particularly good study results by just reviewing the very best cases out of a large number of the patients who have been treated. Such ‘cherry picking’ makes it possible to present really good study results. So, studies of this nature are not worth the paper they are printed on: they simply show how fervently selective the nice researchers have been. But such results could never be put into practice as each appliance produces varying results.
This letter to the editor depicts a blatant case of cherry-picking and identifies further weaknesses in a Bionator study that was published in the official journal of the German Association of Orthodontists. The work that was criticized deceived the scientific community. It is a confession of failure that generally accepted scientific standards do not seem to apply in Germany.