A new article came up in 2016 and it is a case study of a 19 year old male that goes through bone anchored palatal expansion. The technique is called MARPE (microimplant assisted rapid palatal expansion) and although it requires a surgical procedure to anchor an expander to the palate, it does not require an osteotomy (surgically splitting the maxilla at the mid-palatal suture).
This article is interesting because it completely ignores the dogma that bony change is only possible in children. It even includes a table to of recommended expansion rate based on the age of the patient. Note that this tables applies even to adults over 30 years old.
This is further proof that maxilla expansion and cheekbone widening is possible in adults
http://epiorthodontics.blogspot.com/
This guys blog documents his results with the dna appliance on upper and lower expansion. To my knowledge however the force is on the teeth but I don’t know if that makes a difference.
How much did he expand his IMW overall? Did he use braces WHILE expanding?
Not to be pessimistic, but 6mm is very little especially for a 19 year old and this probably upsets alot of people that are looking to get MSE (with perhaps MSDO) for aesthetic reasons.
From what I remember, yes they used braces while expanding. My understanding is that you can use braces with the expander to begin closing the gap in the front teeth early. I don’t know what the total IMW expansion was.