For adults and older teenagers, planned from your own CBCT scan by a specialist orthodontist
MARPE (miniscrew-assisted rapid palatal expansion) widens a narrow upper jaw in adults and older teenagers without jaw surgery. At Mars Orthodontics in South Brisbane each appliance is planned from the patient's own CBCT scan by Dr Carmen Karadeniz, Specialist Orthodontist, and 3D printed in metal to that design. The full course, including the braces or Invisalign that follow and your retainers, is $19,738, with an $8,000 deposit and the balance interest free over 24 months.
| Who it is for | Adults and teenagers whose upper jaw is narrow relative to the lower one, which usually shows as a crossbite on one or both sides, crowding, or a narrow arch with dark corners to the smile. Suitability is decided from your CBCT, not from age. |
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| Where | Shop 14 Southpoint, 275 Grey Street, South Brisbane. Patients travel from across Queensland and interstate. |
| The appliance | Designed individually from your CBCT and iTero scan, anchored with miniscrews placed where your scan shows the bone will hold them (usually four in teenagers and six to eight in adults), and 3D printed in metal by a dental laboratory to Dr Karadeniz's plan. |
| Fitting | One appointment under local anaesthetic, about eight weeks after you go ahead. A confirming CBCT is taken before you leave. |
| How long | Usually eighteen to twenty-four months in total, depending on the case and the severity of the malocclusion, with your own estimate given in writing at your assessment. Expansion is slow and runs alongside the Invisalign or braces phase rather than before it. |
| Visits | Four closer visits at the start (fitting, scans, the start of Invisalign or braces, a first check), then roughly every fourteen weeks until the end. Interstate patients usually attend four to five appointments here, with reviews in between handled remotely and coordination with your own dentist at home. |
| Fee | $19,738 for the whole course: records and CBCT, design and manufacture, fitting, every review, the braces or Invisalign phase, and retainers at the end. |
| Payment | $8,000 deposit in two parts, $4,000 when the appliance is ordered and $4,000 when it is fitted. The balance of $11,649 after your $89 assessment credit runs over 24 months through DentiCare at $485.38 a month, with no interest and no credit check. Work out weekly or fortnightly payments. |
| First step | An $89 specialist assessment with CBCT and a written summary of your options, including the option of no treatment. The $89 comes off your fee if you go ahead. |
The two halves of the upper jaw meet at the midpalatal suture, the join that runs front to back along the roof of the mouth. In children that join is open, so an ordinary expander can widen the jaw. In adults it has matured, and for a long time the only way to widen an adult upper jaw was surgery. MARPE changes that. Small miniscrews are anchored into the bone of the palate, an expansion screw sits between them, and turning that screw slowly separates the two halves of the jaw at the suture. Because the force is carried by bone rather than by the teeth, the widening is skeletal, not just a tipping of the teeth outwards.
The design many people search for by name, MSE (maxillary skeletal expander), works on the same principle. This page covers both, because at this practice the appliance is not a stock design: it is planned for your palate. If you searched for MSE, this section is for you.
The appliance is planned rather than chosen. At your assessment we take a CBCT scan and an iTero scan, and you see your own scan on the screen: whether the suture can be expanded, and what we recommend. Once you go ahead, the two scans are merged into one three-dimensional model and taken to a planning session with the laboratory, where the bone is measured at each possible screw position and the number and length of miniscrews your bone will take are worked out (usually four in teenagers and six to eight in adults). Dr Karadeniz then designs the appliance: where each screw goes, and what else it should carry for your particular bite: a Beneslider where the upper teeth sit forward, hooks for a face mask where the lower jaw sits forward, or intrusion bars for an open bite. A dental laboratory then 3D prints the appliance in metal to that design. It arrives already shaped to your palate, with the anchorage decided from bone that was measured rather than found on the day. Every MARPE here is planned and designed by Dr Carmen Karadeniz, registered specialist orthodontist, and placed and fitted by Dr Ersan Karadeniz. Our guide to MARPE for adults goes into the design in more detail.
Between late October 2025 and September 2026, 43 patients were fitted with a custom MARPE here. All 43 achieved the planned skeletal separation without surgery, confirmed on CBCT. The oldest was 56. Your own scan is assessed before MARPE is recommended, and sometimes the answer is a different treatment, or none.
MSE, the maxillary skeletal expander, is a stock miniscrew-assisted expander: one appliance body in a small range of sizes, with the screw positions fixed by the design. It works on the principle described above, and it was the appliance used at this practice until October 2025. Since then every expander fitted here has been designed from the patient's own CBCT instead. The difference is anchorage. In a stock appliance the miniscrews go where the design puts them, into whatever bone is there; in a designed appliance they go where the scan shows the bone is thickest, with more screws where it is thin. Published series of miniscrew-assisted expansion report the suture separating in roughly 87 to 93 per cent of adults treated with stock appliances; in the rest it does not open, and the likelihood of that rises as the sutures fuse through the twenties and thirties and where the bone resisting expansion is dense. A planned design places the screws where your scan shows the bone will hold them, and for patients over 30 the assisted release described below deals with the resistance of a maturing suture. That is why the outcome line above is checked against a CBCT, not assumed.
So if you were looking for MSE in Brisbane, the treatment you were looking for is the one this page describes, planned for your palate rather than taken from a range. The assessment, the fee and the payment plan are the same.
MARPE is considered for adults and older teenagers who need more width in the upper jaw than tooth movement alone can give. Typical signs are a crossbite, crowding that would otherwise need extractions, a high narrow palate, or a smile with dark spaces at the corners. Whether it is right for you depends on things that are measured, not guessed: how much width is needed, the state of the suture, whether there is enough bone to anchor miniscrews safely, and how your gums and the rest of your bite sit alongside that.
It does not suit everyone. Where the suture is too fused to separate, where the amount of width needed is beyond what expansion can give, or where the jaws are out of position in other directions as well, the right pathway may be surgically assisted expansion or a broader jaw-surgery plan, and we will say so. Gum disease around the back teeth does not by itself rule MARPE out, because the appliance can be designed so those teeth carry no load, but it has to be treated first and managed by a periodontist, with whom we liaise before and during treatment.
The suture matures with age, and the older you are the less likely it is to separate under expansion alone. That is why so much written online says adult expansion means surgery. For patients over 30, our plan includes a small assisted release of the palatal bone, a piezo incision about a centimetre long, made through a guide printed from your own scan at the fitting appointment under the same local anaesthetic. It is not jaw surgery, and there is no hospital or general anaesthetic involved. It lets the suture separate under the same slow, controlled expansion used in younger patients.
Palate expansion is discussed a great deal online in relation to nasal breathing and sleep. Widening the upper jaw also widens the floor of the nose, and research has associated MARPE with increases in nasal airway dimensions. Those findings vary between individuals, and this practice does not present MARPE as a treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea. If breathing or sleep is part of the reason you are looking into expansion, tell us at your assessment: it changes what we screen for and who else may need to be involved in your care.
As the two halves of the upper jaw separate, a gap opens between the upper front teeth. It is expected, and it is the sign that the suture is separating rather than the teeth tipping. How large it becomes depends on the protocol chosen for you. For most adults we use a minimum-gap protocol: expansion is slow, Invisalign starts during expansion rather than after it, the gap is held to about one to two millimetres throughout, and the aligners close it as they go. Adults treated with MARPE and Damon braces follow the same slow expansion, with the gap kept as small as the braces allow; there is a little less control over its size than with aligners. Teenagers usually have classic rapid expansion, where a larger gap forms and then closes faster than it does in adults. Which protocol suits you is decided case by case, with you, or with parents and guardians for a teenager, and both Invisalign and Damon braces are covered by the one fee.
Dr Karadeniz examines you, takes the CBCT and the intraoral scan, and goes through what she finds. You leave with a written summary of the findings and the options, including the option of no treatment, with the fee set out. The assessment is $89 and is credited to your fee if you go ahead.
Once your deposit is received, your scans go to the planning session with the laboratory, the appliance is designed and fabrication begins. Your fitting is booked for approximately eight weeks later, when you see the finished appliance itself.
Before anything is done you practise turning the screw on a model, so you are confident doing it at home. The fit is checked, the palate is numbed, the appliance is cemented and the miniscrews are placed at the positions planned from your scan; for patients over 30 the assisted release described above is done at the same visit. A CBCT confirms everything sits where it should. For the first week you simply get used to the appliance: no turning at all. Speech takes some days to settle while the tongue learns its way around it, and reading aloud helps. Keeping the appliance clean matters more than usual: brush around it and use a water flosser every day. The infections occasionally seen around miniscrews are usually linked to a screw that has loosened, and clean tissue makes them much less likely.
After one week you begin turning, following the schedule we give you. Most people describe pressure rather than pain after each turn, strongest in the minutes afterwards and sometimes felt behind the nose; ordinary pain relief is enough for most people after the first two days. In our experience the suture separates on average between the fifth and sixth day of turning. As soon as you see a tiny gap of about one millimetre between your upper front teeth, stop turning and contact us: it is time for your next visit.
iTero digital scans of your teeth are taken. They are used to make your upper retainer and to proceed with your Invisalign planning, or to plan your braces.
Your Invisalign attachments are fitted and your aligners begin, or your Damon braces go on. From this point, turning continues at once a week.
Four weeks after your attachments or braces are fitted, we check them and your routine of turning and changing your aligner trays.
Visits run approximately every fourteen weeks until the end of your treatment. Once the width is right, turning stops and the appliance stays in place while new bone fills the suture; it is then removed, the alignment is finished, and retainers hold the result. Retainers are included in the fee.
Custom MARPE followed by braces or Invisalign is $19,738. The deposit is $8,000, paid as $4,000 when the appliance is ordered and $4,000 when it is fitted. After the $89 assessment credit, the balance of $11,649 runs over 24 months through DentiCare at $485.38 a month, interest free, with no credit check; DentiCare charges a one-off $59 set-up fee and $2.20 a month. Paying in full takes five per cent off. Where MARPE is planned alongside jaw surgery, the orthodontic fee is $20,000 and the surgeon, anaesthetist and hospital bill you separately. Every fee we charge is published on our fees page, with a calculator.
MARPE is not widely available in Australia, and a good share of our patients travel from elsewhere in Queensland and interstate. The treatment fee is the same. Because visits run about every fourteen weeks once your aligners or braces have started, most interstate patients attend four to five appointments here across the course of treatment, with progress reviews in between handled remotely and coordination with your own dentist at home for anything that needs a chair nearby. When you enquire, tell us where you are travelling from and we plan the visits around it.
Yes. Miniscrew anchorage lets the expansion force act on the bone rather than the teeth, which is what makes skeletal expansion possible after growth has finished. Whether your own suture will separate is assessed on your CBCT before any recommendation is made.
Age alone does not decide it; the state of the suture and the bone do, and both are measured on your scan. Over 30 the plan includes the small assisted release described above. The oldest patient treated here in the past year was 56.
The fitting is done under local anaesthetic. Afterwards, people mostly describe pressure rather than pain, strongest in the minutes after each turn, with some tenderness around the miniscrews for a day or two. Ordinary pain relief is enough for most people after the first two days. Some find it more uncomfortable than others, and we would rather say that plainly than promise it will be easy.
It sits against the roof of your mouth, behind and above your teeth, so nothing is bonded to the front of your teeth as part of the expander itself. What people may notice is the gap between the front teeth during expansion; on the minimum-gap protocol most adults have, it is held to about one to two millimetres and closed by the aligners as treatment goes on.
For some days, while the tongue learns its way around the appliance, and for some people a little longer. Reading aloud for a few minutes a day helps, and it settles.
Brush around the appliance and use a water flosser every day. The infections occasionally seen around miniscrews are usually linked to a loosened screw, and clean tissue makes them much less likely. Tell us straight away if a screw feels loose.
Usually four in teenagers and six to eight in adults, placed where your scan shows the bone will hold them.
Usually eighteen to twenty-four months, depending on the case and the severity of the malocclusion, with your own estimate given in writing at your assessment. Expansion is slow and runs alongside the Invisalign or braces phase.
Both are used here. Most adults have Invisalign on the minimum-gap protocol; Damon braces are the alternative for adults and the usual choice for teenagers. Either is covered by the one fee.
MSE is one stock design of miniscrew-assisted expander; MARPE is the general term. Both anchor to the palate and separate the suture. This practice used MSE until October 2025 and now designs every expander from the patient's own CBCT, whichever name you searched for.
Widening the upper jaw also widens the floor of the nose, and studies have associated MARPE with larger nasal airway dimensions. Results vary between people, and we do not present MARPE as a treatment for sleep apnoea. If breathing is your concern, say so at your assessment.
$19,738 for the whole course including the braces or Invisalign afterwards and your retainers. $8,000 is paid in two parts before and at fitting; the rest runs over 24 months interest free through DentiCare at $485.38 a month. Paying in full takes five per cent off.
Leave your details and we will get back to you to arrange a time. If you are travelling from interstate, tell us where from and we will plan the visits around it.
