Bone Grafting Dental Implants

If a tooth cannot be salvaged and is slated for extraction, it is always advisable to evaluate if a dental implant is going to be placed to replace the tooth to be extracted. If an implant is going to replace the missing tooth, it may very often be placed immediately at the time of extraction. However, for various reasons, implant placement is not done right away at the time of the extraction.

In these situations, it is very important to place bone grafting material into the extraction site immediately following the extraction of the tooth. If the bony socket is left alone and allowed to heal own its own, the normal healing process results in as much as 40% bone loss within a year after the extraction. Subsequently, if an impalnt is to be placed at that site, the bone  remaining is deficient in height and width. As a result of the bone loss, anatomical structures in the proposed implant placement site, such as gthe maxillary sinus or the mandibular nerve,  may even render the implant placement and retention difficult, if not impossible.

There are many different bone grafting materials and methods used to preserve and maintain the extraction site following tooth extraction, and I will write about these in the next blog.