“Alveolar Ridge Augmentation Following Self-Inflating Soft Tissue Expander A Randomized Controlled Clinical and Histological Study”

Abstract

Ridge resorption resulting from tooth loss often compromises ideal implant placement. Hence, in these situations, bone augmentation is often recommended to provide the required ridge width and height. Different techniques have been described for bone grafting: bone block and/or guided bone regeneration (GBR) are used for horizontal bone augmentation, with good predictability and satisfactory final outcomes (McAllister and Haghighat, 2007). However, autogenous block graft remains one of the main methods for reconstructing atrophic resorbed maxilla (Jensen and Terheyden., 2009; Miron et al., 2011; Monje et al., 2014). Among the complication associated with bone augmentations is soft tissue dehiscence, which is the primary cause for bone graft exposures (Lundgren et al., 2008). As a negative consequence, such complication can lead to partial or complete loss of the bone graft (Lundgren et al., 2008). To guarantee a successful final outcome of any surgical procedure, a tension-free primary closure of the soft tissues is important to preserve the vascularisation of the tissues (Cordaro et al., 2002) and to reduce the risk for subsequent post-surgical infections (Wang and Boyapati, 2006). In an attempt to achieve a complete and tension-free primary soft tissue closure over the grafted area, flap advancement is usually performed by mobilizing the mucoperiosteal flap by deep periosteal releasing incisions. However, it compromises the integrity of the periosteum overlying the bone graft, which results in diminished blood supply to the bone graft, less new bone formation and poor