Bone Grafting & Sinus Lift

Why is bone grafting required?

    • The success of a dental implant and its ability to support a dental restoration is very much dependent upon how much bone available in the site where the implant is to be inserted.
    • There are lots of factors that affect the bone volume including periodontal disease, trauma and infection. Dental implant bone grafting helps increase the amount and shape of the jaw bone available to place dental implants. Dental implant bone grafting is a surgical procedure that can usually be done in the dental office. It replaces the bone that has been lost with material from the patient’s own body or with a natural, artificial, or synthetic substitute.

Sinus Lift

    • The maxillary sinus is a pair of air filled structures which occupy space within the facial bones. As a  person grows older, this space tend to enlarge and lie in close proximity with the upper teeth. The sinus may even enlarge into the space previously occupied by extracted tooth. This makes it difficult to place an implant into as there is inadequate amount of bone volume to completely surround the implant. In this instance, a sinus lift procedure is necessary to replace the missing bone.

How is the bone grafting carry out?

The several techniques are listed below:

Block bone grafting

  • This bone grafting technique removes a block of bone from one area in the patient and this then placed into the area where the dental implants will be inserted.
  • The common areas that obtain such bone is near the wisdom tooth area or from the chin. Normally, the bone graft is placed and allowed to intergrate into the jaw bone for four to six months before the dental implant is placed.
  • This technique is used when the bone loss is substantial as is the case when teeth have been lost for many years.

Particulate bone grafting

  • In cases where bone loss is minimal, it is sometimes possible to insert the implants and obtain stability. The areas where the implant is exposed is then grafted cow bone, synthetic materials or even from the patient himself.

Socket Preservation

  • The area of the jaw bone that holds a tooth in place is called a socket. After a tooth has been removed, the bone that supports this tooth rapidly begins to melt away.
  • A socket preservation grafting procedure is performed to reduce the bone loss in the socket. When a surgeon removes a tooth, it is done as gently as possible. In many cases a tooth can be removed gently using newly invented instruments called periotomes. Rather than using a great deal of force with dental pliers (forceps), the periotomes are pushed between the tooth is remove, donor bone is inserted into the tooth socket during the socket preservation grafting procedure.
  • The patient’s body uses this donor bone to rapidly fill the tooth socket with less lost of height and width. The socket preservation grafting procedure can be done right after a tooth removal or a week or two later. Socket preservation procedure is done to conserve the bone in the area of the jaw that a dental implant will be placed.