Oral Surgery and Natural Bone Substitute for Dental Implants- Bone Grafting in Potomac

Bone Grafting

Causes of tooth loss include: extreme tooth decay, facial injury or fracture, infection, and advanced gum disease. Teeth may fall out naturally or require extraction by a dentist. Whatever the cause, tooth loss can be quite embarrassing for the patient and creates both cosmetic and functional problems. Missing teeth may cause spaces or gaps in the smile and shifting of the surrounding teeth. Extreme shifting may require dental braces to treat. There also may be changes to the bite and alignment of the jaw following tooth loss. After tooth loss, the jaw bone may deteriorate without the need to provide the supporting structure for the tooth.

A treatment for bone loss is bone grafting. Bone grafting treatment is performed at our Potomac dental office. The process of bone grafting replaces or increases the amount of bone in places where it has been lost. In dentistry, bone grafting is often used to increase the amount of bone in the jaw preceding treatment with dental implants. Dental implants replace the missing tooth with a natural appearing synthetic tooth and require the placement of small titanium rods in the jaw to support the implant. The jaw bone provides the supporting structure for these titanium rods.

Materials used for bone grafting are artificial, synthetic, or natural bone.

There are different types of bone grafting:

- Autogenous – The bone to be used for grafting is taken from one part of the patient and added to another area of the body. The area where the bone is taken from is often the mouth or hip of the patient.

- Allograft – The grafting material is either synthetic or natural bone that comes from a donor.

- Xenograft – The bone is taken from another animal source, typically cow bone.

- Alloplastic – The grafting material is synthetic. Calcium phosphate is often used to replace bone.

Autogenous bone grafting is considered to be the preferable type of bone grafting because the source of the bone is the patient and there are minimal complications and problems with rejection. A decreased chance for complications is considered highly desirable in any surgical procedure. Thus, autogenous bone grafting is generally preferable over other types of bone grafting.

Although autogenous bone grafting is highly desirable due to limited complications, the advantage of other types of grafts is that the number of surgical sites is decreased. With these types of bone grafts, there is no need for the initial surgery to harvest the bone tissue to be used for grafting. The lack of surgery to harvest the bone tissue can mean a faster recovery and less overall discomfort for the patient.

Our dentists are trained to assess the need for and provide bone grafting treatments. If you have experienced tooth loss, you may also have bone loss in the jaw. Call our Potomac office to schedule an appointment with a dentist to determine a treatment for you.

If you have further questions about bone grafting and oral surgery contact our office for an appointment 301-760-4550.

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Your Dentist 7508 Wisconsin ave. Bethesda MD 20814 tel: 301-760-4550