Safety and Morbidity of Intra-oral Zygomatic Bone Graft Harvesting

This study focuses on the development of a bone collecting device for intra-oral bone harvesting and on the introduction of a new bone graft donor site, zygomatic bone. A bone collector was constructed and tested in vitro. This bone collector is suitable and efficient in dental implant related bone grafting surgery. It was also found to be more efficient and with a larger capacity in bone harvesting when compared to the two commercially available bone collectors. A zygomatic bone harvesting technique is introduced in this study. The safety and morbidity of the method was assessed in a cadaver and a prospective clinical study. In the cadaver study, 40 procedures were performed. The complications during the cadaver harvesting included 15 perforations into the maxillary sinus and 7 perforations into the infratemporal fossa. The only intraoperative complication in 32 clinical operations was perforation of the maxillary sinus in 33% of the zygomatic sites. None of these patients experienced any post-operative problems related to the perforation. Patients needed pain medication for a mean time of four days and they did not demonstrate any paresthesias or altered sensations in the donor area. The yield of the bone graft from zygomatic bone was quantified in cadaver and clinical studies. In the cadaver study, the average yield of the graft was 0.59 ml. In the clinical study the average graft volume was 0.90 ml. The required reconstructions were accomplished in all clinical cases. In the prospective clinical study, the bone grafts from the zygomatic bone were used simultaneously with one-stage dental implants placement. Bone grafting was employed at 72 of the 82 implant sites. Two of the bone grafted implants failed, yielding a survival rate of 97.2% for bone grafted implants and 97.6% for the whole study group. Grafted sites healed remarkably well, and no obvious signs of graft resorption were noted during the 26.9 months follow-up period. The bone collector developed in this study is an effective instrument in intra-oral bone harvesting. The zygomatic bone can be regarded as a safe bone harvesting donor site and the yield of bone graft from this area is sufficient for moderate defects in resorbed alveolar ridges.