Dental Restoration
Dental Restoration
Bone augmentation and dental implants have greatly advanced dental prosthetic rehabilitation and restoration following oral cancer surgery.
These dental techniques provide a stable foundation for dental reconstruction and result in a high-quality, aesthetic appearance.
Advantage
The cancer care team that developed and implemented your treatment plan are the same people who will perform your restoration. With deep understanding of your specific case, these specialists know precisely how best to achieve a natural looking dental restoration.
Bone Augmentation
Bone augmentation is a process used in dental surgery to replace or rebuild bone previously removed from the jaw during cancer surgery. The most common approaches for augmenting jaw bones may involve using bone from other parts of the patient’s body, using purified animal bone or using synthetically manufactured bone. Across the US and at NYU, scientists are involved in a number of different projects to bioengineer bone; these studies show great promise for the future of bone augmentation.
Dental Implants
After restoration of the jawbone through augmentation, dental implants are used in combination with prosthetic devices to restore the physical appearance and the complex function of the mouth.
Dental implants are small screws designed to replace the root of a tooth. Rather than resting on the gum line like removable dentures or using adjacent teeth as anchors like fixed bridges, the implants are placed into the bone mimicking a tooth root. Through a process called "osseointegration" these biocompatible titanium metal implants fuse with the surrounding jawbone. Once the titanium “root” is in place, the implant specialist attaches a new life-like tooth to complete the restoration process.
Implanted in either the upper and/or the lower jaw, dental implants support prosthetic devices that range from one single tooth to an entire arch of dental bridgework or dentures.
