If you need dental implants but your jawbone is too thin or has already significantly receded, bone grafting is a suitable solution. With the help of a professionally performed bone graft, we are able to provide you with long-lasting dental implants despite initially insufficient jawbone thickness and/or height. Learn more here about bone grafting and the services we offer at the Bellevue Dental Practice in Zurich.
Why is bone grafting necessary?
Dental implants require a firm foundation in the jawbone to reliably and long-term replace the function of your natural teeth. However, if your jawbone is too thin, it cannot provide sufficient support for the implants, and bone grafting is necessary. Once your bone has been strengthened through targeted bone grafting, there is generally nothing standing in the way of implant placement.
Causes of Bone Loss
In many cases, a reduction in the volume of the jawbone is the result of tooth loss—without the lost teeth, the supply of nutrients to the affected bone area is limited. In addition, tooth loss usually reduces the jaw’s natural chewing activity. As a result, the bone mass often decreases in height and thickness.
Dentists also believe that loose dentures resting on the gums can contribute to the recession of your jawbone. This is because the dentures subject your jawbone to constant pressure.
Other factors that can reduce the stability and volume of the jawbone include, in addition to the natural aging process, inflammatory diseases of the teeth or gums, accidents that have damaged the natural tooth structure, and long-term teeth grinding.
Material Selection for Bone Grafting
To optimize bone grafting for our patients, we often use the patient’s own bone material at our dental clinic in Zurich. Depending on the individual jaw structure, we can harvest the bone needed for a bone graft from the immediate vicinity of the area to be treated or from the wisdom tooth region. In very rare cases (namely when the jawbone is extremely thin), autologous bone can also be harvested from the pelvic area.
The use of autologous bone for bone grafting offers several advantages. For example, the body’s immune response to its own bone material is extremely rare with this method of bone grafting. Furthermore, in most cases, the healing process for autologous bone proceeds relatively quickly and without complications.
As an alternative to using the body’s own bone material, various bone substitute materials (organic or inorganic) can also be used for bone augmentation. The structure of this material is designed so that it is generally very well integrated by the surrounding jawbone (similar to the body’s own bone).
The Bone Grafting Process
We can perform a jawbone graft under local anesthesia, sedation, or general anesthesia. The type of anesthesia suitable for the procedure depends, among other things, on your individual preferences and the scope of treatment required.
We typically perform the harvesting of the patient’s own bone from the jaw area and the placement of this bone in the area requiring augmentation within a single session. We first secure the bone graft material in place using small screws (due to their good biocompatibility, these are usually titanium screws). We then suture the periosteum and gum tissue over the inserted bone graft. Once the bone graft has fully integrated into the surrounding jawbone after a few months, we remove the titanium screws and place the necessary implants into the now-reconstructed jaw.
Although the duration of a surgical bone graft may vary depending on the patient, this outpatient procedure typically takes about 1 hour on average.
If you are interested in a bone graft at our Bellevue dental practice in Zurich, we would be happy to provide you with comprehensive advice. Please schedule an appointment by phone or via the contact form.