Occasionally, when we do dental implants, we may be required to do a minor bone graft. This is identified when we do the planning of a case. For example, when a patient comes in asking for an implant, we take a CT scan. A CT scan is a 3D image of the jaw, allowing the dentist to see the bone in three dimensions to accurately predict how much bone the patient has in width and in length.
If the patient has a small defect in the bone, then we may be required to do a procedure called a minor bone graft. In order to demonstrate this, Dr Bohara, usually, use this example: “if I put a nail into the wall and I wanted to cover that nail, I would put some Poly-Filler to cover it. For a small bone graft, we use different types of bones. This can be either a man-made bone, prosthetic bone or it can be bovine bone. This is placed over the implant which matures into human bone.”
The other type of bone, which may be required in a very few cases, is a block graft. A block graft is indicated when a patient has a substantial amount of bone loss. A block graft, if required, is taken either from the chin or the back of the lower jaw. This is not placed at the time of implantation, therefore, if a patient had quite significant bone loss, we would do the block graft initially and allow that to heal for six months. Then we would place the implant after healing and allow that to heal for three months.
Like mentioned before, in very small amounts of cases, we may require either a minor bone graft or a block graft. This is crucial because this would allow us to have a stable implant which will last a very long time. When we do these procedures, many of the procedures are done under local anesthetic. That way the patient will not feel anything at all. In some cases, we have very nervous patients, and in these cases, IV sedation may be indicated to make the procedure as relaxing as possible for the patient.
The final bone graft procedure which may be required is in the upper jaw, and that is called a sinus lift. In the upper jaw’s posterior part, there are some instances where the patient may not have enough vertical height of bone for implantation. In these cases, we may have to use artificial bone or bovine bone and place it in the sinus to allow us to increase the height of bone, to allow us to place the implants.
If you are not sure whether or not you have enough bone structure to hold and implant and replace a missing tooth book your free consultation at our Loughborough clinic and learn your options.