New Bone Growth
Written by DTC Miami
Created 04/27/2018
Being familiar with dental implants and implant placements means you should also be familiar with bone grafting. Bone grafting in dentistry is an important skill to know. As you know some patients come in with little to no bone due to the tooth loss making it difficult to restore the missing tooth with an implant. Bone grafting is the solution to this challenge. According to the Journal of Pharmacy and BioAllied Sciences, “Bone grafts are used as a filler and scaffold to facilitate bone formation and promote wound healing.”(1). Bone grafting is an important technique to be cognizant of. Whether you are performing the bone grafting or discussing it with another peer, it is crucial to understand for the care of your patient. Some bone grafting procedures are preventive and others are restorative. For example, ridge preservation with a tooth socket graft preserves and prevents bone loss. Another common example is block cortical graft procedures to widen bony ridges where bone loss has already occurred.
Bone grafting replaces missing bone with materials from patient’s own body, an artificial, synthetic, or natural substitute (2). Bone grafting is an excellent procedure for bone restoration in the jaw, but there are also many precautionary aspects to bone grafting. Reviewing the medications your patient is taking to the patients state of mind are all crucial aspects before offering this procedure to patients.
Nonetheless, there are many benefits to bone grafting.
According to ToothIQ, the benefits are:
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preserves or restores bone volume for a more natural tooth look
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stabilizes implant
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allows placement of implants
Without bone grafting none of these benefits could be given to the patient.
Some of the disadvantages are risk of nerve injury, the use of anaesthetic, and infection amongst others. Due to these disadvantages of risk, dentists must obtain the best educational experience when learning about bone grafting. It is important that the dentist be able to participate in hands-on activities to better learn the technique and best avoid the disadvantages. As well as having the opportunity to ask the instructor all questions regarding the procedure. While bone grafting is a great solution to tooth loss in dental implantology, it is important to know when this is the best solution for your patient. Overall, bone grafting is an important concept to learn about and an important procedure to get your hands on.