Bone Grafting
Emergency Bone Grafting and Why it is Needed in Special Cases
This is an emergency surgical procedure that replaces missing bone in order to repair fractures that are complicated and can pose a health risk to a patient. When your teeth are anchored to your jaw, a significant amount of healthy bone structure must be present to support the teeth. If a dangerous infection is present after tooth loss, then their may be deterioration of the bone and the bone grafting process may be the recommended as a procedure.
Dental Bone Grafting is a restorative process that is meant to aid the healing of your natural bone that supports your teeth or dental implants. There are differing forms of bone grafting procedures that may be used in an emergency that you should be aware of.
- Sinus Lift Graft - The maxillary sinuses are behind your cheeks and on top of the upper teeth. Sinuses are like empty rooms that have nothing at all in them. Some of the roots of the natural upper teeth extend up into the maxillary sinuses. When these upper teeth are removed, there is often just an egg shell thin wall of bone separating the maxillary sinus and the mouth. Dental implants need bone to hold them in place so when the sinus wall is very thin, it is impossible to place dental implants in this bone. There is a solution and it’s call a sinus graft or sinus lift graft. The dental implant surgeon enters the sinus from it’s side above where the upper teeth used to be. The sinus membrane is then lifted upward and donor bone is inserted into the floor of the sinus. Remember, the floor of the sinus is the roof of the upper jaw. After several months of healing, the bone becomes part of the patient’s jaw and dental implants can be inserted and stabilized in this new sinus bone.
- Block Bone Grafting - This dental implant bone grafting technique is where a block of bone is cut out of one area in the same patient and screwed into the area where the dental implants will be placed. Normally, the dental implant block bone graft is placed and allowed to integrate into the jaw bone for four to six months before the dental implant is placed.
- Guided Tissue Regeneration - Soft tissue, such as gum tissue, grows very fast while bone grows very slow. When a surgical hole is created by a dentist, soft tissue grows into the surgical hole very quickly and blocks out bone from growing into the hole. When bone is needed in an area to place dental implants, uncontrolled gum tissue growth is a problem. A membrane barrier can be used to cover the surgical hole and block out the gum tissue from growing into the area. This allows the more slowly growing bone to fill the surgical hole without any competition.
- Bone Expansion - The membrane barrier guides the gum tissue away from the surgical defect. Gums and bone are both tissues and both are guided by the artful placement of a membrane barrier. Because the bone regenerates in the surgical hole, the technique is called guided tissue regeneration. Some dental implant dentists call it guided bone regeneration because implant dentists are very concerned about the supporting bone around their dental implants.
- Socket Preservation - Many people, including some doctors, incorrectly believe that bone is hard and unbendable. Perhaps this false idea comes from studying dried skeletons. However, living bone is much softer than dried bone. Living bone can be stretched open. This stretching is called bone expansion.