Dental Health Magazine Dental Health Magazine Issue 8 | Page 28

Issue #8, December 2017
28
Dental implants
been inserted
painlessly under
local anesthesia
and after 3 months
of healing process.
6
What is bone grafting
and bone regeneration?
Bone grafts
Bone grafting procedure is performed to increase
the width and height of the jawbone at the implant
site. The best success can be achieved when bone
from another part of your own mouth or body is
used and this is known as autogenousgrafting.
Typically, bone is harvested from inside the mouth,
as it is a good source of marrow which contains
many bone cells. Allograft is a graft that use donated
human bone taken from a ‘bone bank’ and work in
the same way as autogenous grafts but with lesser
success rate. Xenograft is a procedure that use bone
from an animal donor, with cows acting as the main
source (bovine bone). The bovine bone in the graft is
replaced by your own bone tissue over time. Alloplast
is grafting that use synthetic bone substitutes that are
chemically similar to human bone. These grafts act as
a sort of framework for new natural bone formation
and may be replaced by natural bone (resorbable
alloplast) or retained (non-resorbable alloplast).
An autogenous graft is the preferred choice because
there is absolutely no risk of your body rejecting it.
After the procedure, you will need to allow appropriate
healing for at least 3-6 months before having implants
placed. The exact waiting time will depend how much
bone has been grafted.
Bone regeneration using barrier membranes
(guided tissue regeneration)
This is a special surgical method to enable bone
cells an advantage over other types of cell to
multiply and cover an area where bone loss has
happened. Frequently, cells from the gum surface
and the connective tissues multiply much faster
at filling the gaps created by bone destruction
compared with the bone cells and so bone may
not have an opportunity to regenerate even when
inflammation has been eliminated. In this procedure,
the barrier membrane covers the area of bone loss
and prevents access to it for the other cell types,
giving the bone cells a better opportunity to fill in
the defect. The barrier membrane may disintegrate
and disappear over time (resorbable) or may need
to be removed in a later procedure (non-resorbable).
The natural looking implant teeth