RESEARCH ARTICLE
Histomorphometric Evaluation of Anorganic Bovine Bone Coverage to Reduce Autogenous Grafts Resorption: Preliminary Results
Carlo Maiorana1, Mario Beretta1, Giovanni Battista Grossi1, Franco Santoro1, Alan Scott Herford2, Heiner Nagursky3, Marco Cicciù4, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 5
First Page: 71
Last Page: 78
Publisher ID: TODENTJ-5-71
DOI: 10.2174/1874210601105010071
Article History:
Received Date: 8/8/2010Revision Received Date: 25/11/2010
Acceptance Date: 9/12/2010
Electronic publication date: 25/4/2011
Collection year: 2011

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Physiologic resorption due to remodeling processes affects autogenous corticocancellous grafts in the treatment of atrophic jawbone alveolar ridges. Such a situation in the past made overgrafting of the recipient site mandatory to get enough bone support to dental implants in order to perform a prosthetic rehabilitation. Anorganic bovine bone, conventionally used to treat alveolar bone deficiencies in implant surgery, showed a high osteoconductive property thanks to its micro and macrostructure very similar to that of human hydroxyapatite. An original technique provides for the application of a thin layer of anorganic bovine bone granules and a collagen membrane on the top of the corticocancellous onlay bone grafts to reduce in a remarkable way the graft resorption due to remodeling. The results of a clinical prospective study and a histomorphometric analysis done on autogenous grafts harvested from the iliac crest showed that the proposed technique is able to maintain the original bone volume of the corticocancellous blocks.