Abstract
It is important, for the genioplasty, to make a plan for functional as well as aesthetic improvements because the chin includes not only influential parts of facial the balance but also attachment sites of suprahyoid and labiomental muscles.
Sliding genioplasty with little-detaching suprahyoid and labiomental muscles is useful for the correction of functional and aesthetic problems of chin deformities.
However, a bone graft may be employed in order to move a bony fragment in the anteroinferior border of a mandible, to correct chin deformities.
Porous hydroxyapatite and tricalciumphosphate composite (HAP·ETCP) blocks, designed specially for such cases, can be substituted for a bone graft to stabilize a bony fragment and to improve the soft tissue line of the chin.
None of 17 cases in which functional genioplasty incorporating the implantation of the HAP·ETCP blocks was applied, showed any abnormal clinical courses over three years of observation.
The results of histological and radiological study, which were indicated in some selected cases, substantiated the unproblematic clinical course of this treatment.
