Bone Grafting in Pittsburgh, PA

Bone is commonly used in periodontal surgical procedures. The bone used for these procedures can be your own (autogenous), from a tissue bank (allograft), from an animal source (xenograft) or synthetic. For additional information, contact www.lifenet.org.

1. Socket Preservation

The bone supporting a tooth (the socket) starts to atrophy or diminish when a tooth is extracted, which may result in jaw deformity. This damage can cause a problem when it comes to replacing the missing tooth with a bridge, implant or denture. This problem can be avoided by using a procedure called socket preservation. Bone is immediately replenished at the time of the extraction. This preservation can greatly improve your smile’s appearance and increase your chances for successful tooth replacement. It may diminish the need for a more costly bone replacement down the road.

2. Ridge Augmentation

If missing teeth are not immediately replaced with dental implants or if socket preservation is not done at the time of extraction, the jaw bone begins to atrophy or erode. This situation can also occur as a result of periodontal disease, wearing dentures, developmental defects, injury or trauma.

This often creates a situation in which there is poor quality and quantity of bone. It can also cause an unattractive indentation in the jaw line near the missing teeth.

Today, we have the ability to replenish this bone, giving us the proper length and width of bone necessary to place dental implants and to improve the esthetics of the area.

3. Sinus Augmentation Procedure

If you have lost bone in the upper back jaw due to periodontal disease or tooth loss, you may be left without enough bone to successfully place dental implants. Your sinuses are located behind your cheeks and on top of the upper teeth. Sinuses are empty air sacs in the upper jaw bone. A sinus augmentation can allow us to raise the sinus floor and develop bone for the placement of implants. This is a very common and effective procedure. Often this procedure includes the use of Autologus Platelet Concentrate.