A Front Tooth Lost to a Childhood Injury, Rebuilt with a Bone Graft and an Implant
A front tooth lost to an injury in childhood. By adulthood the ridge had shrunk to about a millimeter of width, far too little for an implant. A block bone graft rebuilt it, and an implant was placed once the graft had healed.
The Situation
A central incisor knocked out in childhood. When a tooth is lost in childhood, the bone that held it tends not to develop as it otherwise would, and the ridge narrows further over the years. By the time this patient was ready for an implant, the ridge was about one millimeter wide. An implant needs several millimeters of bone around it, and in the smile line the shape of that bone decides how natural the gum looks.
What Was Done
A block of the patient’s own bone was taken from elsewhere in the jaw, fixed to the thin ridge with small screws, and packed around with particulate graft, then covered and left to heal for several months. Once the ridge was wide enough, an implant was placed and later restored with a crown by the patient’s dentist. Bone grafting explains when a graft is needed and what recovery is like.
The Result
The photograph shows the site before treatment and the finished implant crown. A tooth in the smile line that matches its neighbors, on a ridge rebuilt to carry it. This is among the most demanding situations in implant dentistry, because the gum contour has to be rebuilt along with the bone.