Periodontist

Bone Grafting

Regenerative Periodontal Therapy generally requires the use of dental bone graft materials to restore damaged tissue contours.  There are many bone graft materials which can be used to treat bone (osseous) defects.  Using the patient’s own bone has long been the gold standard for periodontal grafts, however harvesting bone is invasive, and in most cases produces injury to another part of the body to restore the damaged jaw bone.  Synthetic bone graft materials are available, but none have proven stable over the long term or able to stimulate the body to regenerate lost bone.  Osseous tissue from non-human species is available as well, but we choose not to use that in our practice, as there have been cases of disease transmission to recipients of animal derived graft materials.  Donated human bone has proven to be osteogenic, and is a very effective substitute for the patient’s own bone.  It is abundant, and though rather costly, is well tolerated and provides an excellent result.  Human bone graft material is provided by tissue banks, the same organizations that provide donor organs such as hearts and kidneys.   Because of the sensitive nature of this material, South River Periodontics uses bone only from one tissue bank, Lifenet.  We are confident that Lifenet provides a safe material, which has been screened and processed in a manner that assures its safety and effectiveness.  Lifenet treats those who have donated their tissues with great respect, and we are very comfortable using their bone and soft tissue graft materials.