Guided bone regeneration - a literature review

Abstract

Dental extractions are still very common in clinical dental practice. Soon the dental surgeon faces difficulties to rehabilitate function and aesthetics, due to the bone volume and, consequently, the gingival volume reduced by tooth loss. The treatment of cortical bone defects is a clinical challenge, and in cases with large vertical and horizontal bone loss, guided bone regeneration may be the best option of choice. Some of the indications for the guided bone regeneration technique are: preservation of the alveolar ridge after tooth extraction, filling spaces around implants installed immediately after extraction, and augmentation of the alveolar ridge for subsequent rehabilitation with implants and prostheses. In view of these considerations, the objective of this literature review was to study variations in the guided bone regeneration technique and the different materials used. The search database was Medline PubMed with studies covering the years 2003 to 2020.