In order to guarantee stability to a dental implant, it is necessary to have an adequate quantity (and quality) of bone. As a result of various factors, first of all the use of dentures which resting directly on the gingiva favor bone resorption, the quantity of bone present may not be sufficient to undergo a dental implant surgery.
If the absence of bone is significant then we will talk about severe bone atrophy.There are several solutions, more or less complex, to solve the problem of bone deficiency: today we talk about splitting crest.
The alveolar ridge
The alveolar ridges (called bone crests) are two and are located respectively on the lower jaw and between the teeth of the upper jaw and the hard palate. They contain, in fact, the alveoli, which hold the teeth in the arches and consist of three different parts:
- the external one (vestibular cortex);
- the internal one (palatal cortex);
- the medullary one
To restore the right expansion to the bone, different techniques can be adopted, which the dentist will be able to evaluate on the basis of the patient’s health conditions. If reabsorption decreases bone thickness highlighting the classic case of knife blade bone, then it may be possible to resort to split crest.
The split crest is the only solution that guarantees a consistent increase in the thickness of the crest, which can even reach 5 millimeters; therefore, with such bone reintegration, it will be easy for the implantologist to position the implants stably.
What is the split crest
The split crest resolves bone atrophy through an intervention that involves a preliminary cutting of the bone, parallel to the conformation of the teeth, followed by the surgical separation of the internal bone crest (palatal cortex), with a shift towards the outside (vestibular cortex ).
Nowadays it is split crest is mainly used to operate the upper dental arch, as it has a bone consistency that lends itself better to this type of technique; despite this, the doctor, before intervening, must check that the crestal bone, in its vertical part, is at least 10 millimeters.
He must also ensure that the vestibular inclination (external part of the ridge) is not excessive, so that the implant can be placed correctly and functionally.
Once any contraindications that could compromise the success of the operation are averted, you can proceed with the split crest technique, which has numerous advantages compared to other techniques, such as the significant reduction in intervention times, convalescence and costs, which are considerably lower.
