This was a retrospective study of healthy adults who had received dental implant treatment between January 2011 and August 2015. These subjects were divided into two groups, namely the treatment group who had received implant surgery after orthodontic treatment and the control group who had not received orthodontic therapy before implant surgery. A total of 94 subjects were recruited and 207 sites were involved. Among these subjects 25 subjects and 51 sites formed the treatment group. No significant differences were found between control group and treatment group in terms of gender or age (both p > 0.05). Furthermore, no significant difference was found between control group and treatment group for bone density across all sites or within the mandible group between the control and treatment groups. However, a significant difference between the two groups was found when bone density was assessed as the proportion of patients with a maxillary bone density of D4, this being higher in treatment group than the control group (92.31% vs. 52.54%, p = 0.024). A similar results was obtained when the maxillary bone density measurements were grouped into good (D1 + D2 + D3) vs. poor (D4) (p = 0.011). Thus we found that orthodontic treatment brought about a greater change in the bone density of the maxilla compared to that of the mandible. Importantly, such a decrease in bone density could require changes to the surgical protocol used to treat the patient as well as to the occlusal scheme. However, because many factors are able to affect bone density, in the future a large controlled clinical trial study is necessary to conform these findings. (J Taiwan Periodontol, 21(1):6-11, 2016)