AUTOLOGOUS BONE GRAFTS – INDICATIONS AND RESTRICTIONS

INTRODUCTION : Autologous bone grafts and especially intraoral autografts have been used with increasing success for centuries and remain in common use today. They involve the transport of bone from an intraoral donor site to a different intraoral site, in the same patient. AIM AND METHOD: The aim of this poster is to introduce the intraoral autogenous bone grafts and evaluate the indications and restrictions of these techniques. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Autografts are commonly obtained from intraoral sites such as: symphysis mandible, ramus mandible, anterior sinus wall and lateral zygomatic buttress. Autograft bone harvested from mandibular ramus is used when the requiring augmentation is less than 4mm in thickness and span a maximum of four teeth. Although this graft presents a risk of damage to the inferior alveolar nerve, it is associated with secondary complications compared to other intraoral sites. Generally, indications for bone augmentation procedures are determined by means of the following parameters: a)Presence of severe alveolar ridge atrophy rated classes IV and V according to the Cawood and Howell classification b)Residual maxillary bone less than 5 mm from the alveolar crest to the sinus floor. RESULTS: Even when major augmentation procedures with autografts had to be carried out for severely resorbed jaws, success rates exceeding 95% have been achieved. CONCLUSION: Although, autolografts occasionally have significant drawbacks, such as increased postoperative morbidity, the need of secondary surgical visit and the lack of sufficient bone mass at the donor site, it is still regarded as the gold standard in alveolar reconstruction, due to its osteoconduction, osteoinduction and osteogenesis-inducing characteristics.