Bone Grafting What Can Bone Graft­ing Pro­ce­dures Do For You

Bone Graft­ing Around Teeth

In cer­tain cases of bone loss around teeth, where there are bony walls to hold a bone graft; a bone graft can be added to regain a sig­nif­i­cant part of the bone lost around a tooth or teeth. The regained bone will improve the long term out­look for the tooth or teeth and help keep the tooth or teeth in the mouth. Keep­ing teeth in one’s mouth helps to improve the over­all func­tion of the teeth and con­tributes to one’s smile and over­all appearance.

Miss­ing Teeth And Bone Grafting

When you have miss­ing teeth, over time you will expe­ri­ence addi­tional bone loss in the areas of the miss­ing teeth. With­out the func­tion of a tooth or an implant in an area of bone, the bone becomes slowly lost due to a lack of func­tion in that area of bone. This bone loss is espe­cially wor­ri­some if you are seek­ing den­tal implants, as the bone loss often can result in poor qual­ity of bone and a lack of bone quan­tity suit­able for place­ment of den­tal implants.

Bone graft­ing at the time of tooth extrac­tion can pre­vent and min­i­mize this bone loss. Bone graft­ing can repair future implant sites with inad­e­quate bone after pre­vi­ous extrac­tions, peri­odon­tal dis­ease or injuries. Bone graft­ing gives the oppor­tu­nity to place implants of opti­mum length and width as well as giv­ing the oppor­tu­nity to restore func­tion­al­ity and aes­thetic appear­ance in many cases. A pro­ce­dure called Guided Bone Regen­er­a­tion involves the use of spe­cial dis­solv­able mem­branes under the gum to opti­mize bone graft heal­ing and regeneration.

Ridge Expan­sion

In severe cases, when the bony ridge has been reab­sorbed, a bone graft can be placed to increase the ridge height and / or width. The bone graft mate­r­ial that is placed must mature for at least sev­eral months before an implant can be placed in the expanded ridge.

Sinus Lift Procedure

The ( upper jaw ) max­il­lary sinuses are spaces lined with mem­branes that are located behind your cheeks and above the roots of the upper back teeth. The roots of the upper back teeth often extend up near to the floor (bot­tom part) of the max­il­lary sinuses. When the upper back teeth are removed, there is often just a thin amount of bone sep­a­rat­ing the floor of the sinus and the mouth. When there is insuf­fi­cient amount of bone between the sinus floor and the mouth, it is not pos­si­ble to place den­tal implants in this bone because den­tal implants need a cer­tain amount of bone to sta­bi­lize them for ini­tial healing.

A solu­tion to this prob­lem is called a sinus lift graft. Sinus bone grafts are per­formed to replace bone in the back area of the upper jaw. The sinus is care­fully entered from the area where the upper back teeth used to be. The sinus mem­brane is lifted upward and donor bone is placed under the lifted mem­brane into the floor of the sinus. After sev­eral months of heal­ing, the donor bone becomes part of the jaw and den­tal implants can be inserted and sta­bi­lized in this new sinus bone.

If enough bone exists between the floor of the sinus and the mouth to ini­tially sta­bi­lize the place­ment of an implant but there is not enough bone for an opti­mum implant length to be used, the sinus lift bone graft and implant place­ment can be per­formed at the same time in a sin­gle appoint­ment. If there is not enough bone to ini­tially sta­bi­lize an implant, the sinus lift bone graft will have to be done first; then the bone graft must mature for at least sev­eral months, depend­ing on the type of graft used. Once the bone graft has matured, implants can be placed in the area of the graft.