Sometimes, patients don’t have sufficient jaw health for us to perform a procedure like dental implant surgery. Other times, we need a way to preserve jaw structure at the site of a wisdom tooth extraction. For cases like these, we utilize grafting technology to augment the jaw bone.
Many dental procedures today involve bone grafting. There are a number of choices of grafting materials with which patients may be familiar. These grafting materials work to restore the bone supporting teeth and dental implants.
Different Sources of Dental Bone Grafts
There are several standard sources of boney material used in jaw augmentation. The options for bone grafting include:
- Dentin graft– an autograft with the patient’s tooth as the source
- Autograft– from the patient’s own bone
- Allograft– from human bone
- Xenograft– from a cow’s bone
- Alloplast– from natural (hydroxyapatite) or synthetic sources
Autografts have been long considered the gold standard for bone grafting because it uses the patient’s native material. This is always preferred to using foreign bone tissue. However, an autograft requires a second site to obtain the graft, which requires another procedure and may cause additional pain.
The newest and most holistic type of jaw bone graft that’s changing all that is called dentin grafting. Dentin grafting can eliminate the need for a second surgical site for the graft harvest, or the need to use cadaver or cow grafting materials, etc.
Understanding the Advantages of Dentin Grafting
With dentin grafting, about ten minutes is needed to prepare the graft for placement. Once the tooth is removed and the external surface is cleaned, the Smart Dentin Grinder grinds the tooth into small particles. These particles are then cleaned and placed in the graft site.
Since the graft is from the patient and contains living cells, the graft immediately gets to work once the oral surgeon applies it. Dentin grafting is a great way to recycle extracted tooth tissue, eliminate the need for a harvesting procedure, and optimize the chances of the graft succeeding in helping the jaw to restore strength.
This advanced technology is utilized to regenerate bone around teeth and implants. If part of a graft is not used on the initial surgery day, it can be treated and stored for later use in the patient. Dentin grafts have demonstrated a high success rate; in one study, at 24 months post-graft surgery, there was a high rate of reabsorption resulting in new, healthy bone growth at the site.
Benefits & Downsides to Dentin Grafting
This new development in autologous jaw grafts offers several advantages to other graft sources:
- Faster bone healing
- Less expensive
- Less inflammation
- Lower soft tissue reaction
- Matchless biocompatibility with no immune response
- No risk of adverse reaction to foreign substances
- No second procedure to harvest the bone graft
- The cells are more analogous to cortical bone
However, not every dental bone graft works out, and people with certain conditions are at higher risk of graft failure than normal:
- Allergy to penicillin
- Bone disease
- Diabetes
- Immunocompromised
- Long-term prescription steroid use
- Radiation/chemotherapy
In addition, smoking hugely increases your risk of graft failure. Smoking inhibits healing processes by retarding the quality and strength of blood circulation. At the same time, it exposes your mouth tissues to toxic substances. In clinical settings, smoking has been linked to soft tissue necrosis at the graft site, anti-adhesion, and even exposure of the dental bone graft; 33% of smokers as opposed to less than 8% of non-smokers experienced these major complications.
Often, poor post-op care is the culprit of a dentin graft failing – their success rate is impressively high when the oral surgeon’s directions are followed. So make sure to ask Dr. Puckett any and all questions you have before and after your dentin bone graft, and follow the post-op instructions we give you to a t. You’ll be all healed up in no time.
State-of-the-Art Dentin Grafting for the Cincinnati Area
As part of our patient-centered approach to holistic oral surgical care, Wilmington Oral Surgery is excited to offer dentin grafting. If you are interested in learning more about dentin grafting, you can find more information in our guides to dental bone grafting and dentin grafting.
Please use our online contact form or call our office at 937.382.8020 to schedule an appointment and consultation with our oral surgeon.
