Do synthetic materials have advantages over real bone when it comes to comes to dental bone grafts? i'm going to be needing a bone graft for an implant ill be getting, and i've read that synthetics materials can help promote bone growth better than real b

There : There are medications that can enhance bone growth--bone morphogenic protein and another is a human growth factor. These can "signal" the body to help create bone. Other materials such tricalcium phosphate, hydroxyapatite, and other synthetic material are just fillers. The bone morphogenic protein is probably the one material that can, as you say, promotes bone growth better than real bone, but it is rather pricey. Real bone is the least expensive good alternative.

The : The advantage of synthetic materials over real bone is that they don't have to cut you or some one else up to obtain the material used to build back you missing bone. However, it does seem that the closer we get to natural bone, and even better to your own bone, the better the predictability of the results. Without any questions the best results I have seen were from autogenous bone harvested from the patients' hip of skull. For ridge preservation I use denatured dried ground cadaver bone to great effect, but for ridge widening blocks of harvested bone produce excellent immediate results. There are cell extracts called bmp (bone morphogenic protein) which are ganing popularity and in the correct circumstances can produce significant bone regeration. Dr neil mcleod dds dentistry that lasts - quality that counts.

Without : Without seeing the radiographs it is a bit difficult to answer accurately for your situation, however, i would agree with my two colleagues who have responded prior to this posting. Essentially there are two types of grafts: osseoinductive (actually has properties that make the bone want to grow where this material is) and osseoconductive (acts as a scaffold which the body can slowly grow over). Generally when we as professionals talk about synthetic materials we are talking about crushed up coral or glass or plaster of paris and the like (yes...Really). These are, at best, osseoconductive. Osseoinductive products are your own bone, "cadaver" bone and newer biostimulative materials such as bone morphogenic protein (bmp). We have excellent research with various bone augmentation utilizing own bone and cadaver bone and some really exciting results with the bmps. I would make sure the graft material that is to be used has the osseoinductive properties. Clarify what your doctor means by "synthetic" and make sure it will indeed regenerate bone not just be a filler. Of course, you have great professionals who can help out here. Best regards, dr. Smith.

Depends: The statistics are that using your own bone has the highest success rate. However, the rate of success of synthetic material is also high. Using your own bone requires that it be harvested from somewhere else, which requires a second surgical site.

Depends: Each situation requires its own choice of the graft materials to be used. The size of the defect, location, reason for graft, etc. All information for the particular situation must be taken into consideration. Synthetic material tend to take longer to "turn into" human bone. Cadaver tends to consolidate faster. Your own bone is live and tends to heal faster. Being said there is a use for all.

No: Bone from cadeavors or your own bone is considered optimal for grafting a site for future implant placement. A synthetic bone may never turnover, and hence the implant may never integrate.

Depends: Depends upon the skill level of your surgeon and the bone graft materials that your surgeon feels comfortable with. Your bone is the gold standard followed by cadaver bone followed by synthetics.

No: The best bone graft material is an autologous graft. That means your own bone is the best grafting material to use. The disadvantage is that you will need two surgical sites; one site the donor site and the other is the graft site. The next best graft is rhbmp. A synthetic protein on a collagen carrier. The next is cadaver bone. There are many ways to promote bone growth. Good luck.

Read the Science: One of the scientific presentations at this year's 11th periodontal- restorative dental symposium (held once every 3 years) held in boston, ma was exactly on this topic. The world renowned dental researcher who presented stated that along with certain healing factors, all the different types of bone grafting material options yielded nearly the same results.