2003 Volume 16 Issue 4 Pages 538-544
Distraction osteogenesis has been used for vertical alveolar ridge augmentation in implant treatment. This technique has various benefits compared with autologous bone graft. Therefore, alveolar ridge augmentation using distraction osteogenesis is prevailing in inadequate bone cases. This technique involves osteotomy in the alveolar bone to obtain a moving bone fragment. In the conventional method, the lingual mucosa must not desquamate in order to supply blood to bone the fragment during osteotomy. However, osteotomy requires blind surgery in the lingual site, and can injure the lingual tissues. So, we performed osteogenesis distraction without lingual osteotomy at the posterior site of the mandible. When box formed osteotomy was performed by our method, the bone fragment was separated from the mandibular bone completely.
The patient, who had contracted vertical bone resorption, underwent distraction osteogenesis without lingual osteotomy. Total lengthening was 5.0 mm in the vertical direction in 10 days. During the latency period, local infection occurred, but a sufficient bone volume was obtained. Our result suggested that distraction osteogenesis without lingual osteotomy is useful for alveolar bone augmentation.
