When many people think of oral health, all they worry about is tooth decay or cavities. Cavities affect the teeth themselves. What many people forget is that we can lose teeth that are perfectly healthy when the surrounding tissues are unhealthy from gum disease.
Bone grafting is a treatment that can both save natural teeth and enable you to replace missing teeth with dental implants. These are important ways of maintaining great oral health.
What is Bone Grafting?
Bone grafting is a surgical dental procedure in which your doctor places “new bone” into a site that is lacking. The material your doctor adds does not necessarily become your bone, but it does promote and support the growth of your own bone into the site. It acts as a scaffold or matrix into which active bone cells can create new bone.
Where does Bone Grafting Material Come From?
Surgeons have a variety of bone grafting material at their disposal because we treat a variety of patients with a wide range of needs and desires. Some have moral or religious objections to certain materials, while others have medical complications associated with some.
Your Own Bone from Another Area of the Body
For those with a high level of concern for any foreign material, we can use the patient’s own bone from another area of the body. The advantage of this is that the risk for rejection or reaction is minimal. The disadvantage is the need for two surgical sites, with the risk for post-operative complications in both.
Cadaver Bone
Another wonderful option is freeze-dried cadaver bone. Because this is also human tissue, the risk for rejection is very low. The material is readily available for use in surgeries of many kinds.
Animal Bone
The most commonly used form of bone grafting material is actually demineralized animal bone, usually from cows or pigs. This material does not contain any organic material from the animal so there is no risk for infection. There is a low risk for rejection. This material is safe, readily available and relatively inexpensive.
Synthetic Bone
We also have bone grafting material made in a lab. This sterile material may seem safest, but it does carry a minor risk for rejection.
How Can Bone Grafting Save Teeth?
When a tooth or teeth suffer from periodontal disease, they suffer destruction of the bone surrounding the teeth. Your periodontist stops the disease process first and then discusses with you the options for replacing the bone lost to the disease.
In areas of rapid destruction, large defects in the bone can develop around the teeth. Your periodontist can add stability and support by repairing the areas of defect. When he or she performs a bone graft after the treatment of periodontal disease, the goal is to improve the lifespan of a particular tooth.
Sometimes bone grafting is necessary on multiple teeth, and in other cases, patients only have isolated areas requiring additional support. When bone grafting is successful, it allows patients to keep teeth for many years that would otherwise be lost to the disease.
How Can Bone Grafting Help You Replace Missing Teeth?
We also use bone grafting to improve a site in the jawbone that will receive the placement of a dental implant. Dental implants are versatile, supporting everything from a single missing tooth to a full arch dental prosthesis (like a denture). The most important condition for the success of a dental implant is the quantity and quality of jawbone in the area of placement.
When your dentist removes a tooth by extraction, we can improve the success of the future implant by filling the empty socket with a bone graft. This socket preservation graft does just as the name implies: it preserves the bone of the tooth’s socket. It maintains the health and size of the jawbone so that a future implant will have a successful long life.
We can also use bone grafting to add bone into an area that is deficient in bone. In cases where a certain area needs a dental implant but does not have enough bone to support one, we can increase the bone through grafting. There are a variety of grafting techniques your surgeon can use to augment the amount of bone in an area to make it suitable for dental implant placement.
Do You Need Bone Grafting?
Call Rockland Dental Specialists today to schedule a consultation with our periodontal experts. We can answer any question you have about the various types of bone grafting and help you proceed with treatment to achieve great oral health. Call us at (845) 259-2500 or complete our online contact form today!
