Oral surgery
Dento-alveolar surgery treats conditions of the bone and soft tissues of the dento-maxillary apparatus under local anaesthesia, without requiring post-operative hospitalisation. The conditions addressed by this branch of dentistry are: periapical granulomas, maxillary cysts, impacted or partially impacted teeth, difficult tooth extractions, peri-bony abscesses of dental origin, benign tumours, periodontal conditions, bone augmentations, sinus lift, etc.
Oral and maxillofacial surgery involves more extensive surgical procedures: fractures in the oro-maxillofacial region, large tumours, various infections, etc. These surgical procedures are usually performed under general anaesthesia and require hospitalisation and careful post-operative monitoring.
The dental procedures within oral surgery include:
- Tooth extraction – the procedure by which a diseased tooth that cannot be treated is removed from its socket. This procedure does not require an incision of the adjacent soft tissues.
- Surgical tooth extraction – the treatment method by which an erupted, partially erupted or unerupted tooth is extracted through an incision of the adjacent tissues (gum, bone).
- Surgery for prosthetic purposes (pre- or pro-prosthetic) – surgical procedures are used to restore the prosthetic field so that a prosthetic restoration can be made after the tissues have healed: alveolectomy, alveoloplasty, tissue excision and repositioning, bone grafting.
- Surgical exposure and repositioning of an unerupted tooth.
- Replantation, repositioning and immobilisation of a luxated tooth.
- Incision and drainage of an abscess or cyst in the oral cavity.
- Frenectomy / frenoplasty – the procedure by which the lip frenulum is excised.
- Guided tissue regeneration.
- Emergency treatment of maxillo-mandibular fractures.
- Preservation of the socket after tooth extraction and guided bone regeneration – these procedures comprise surgical techniques that achieve remodelling of the bone contour following defects arising after extraction, due to infectious or tumoural conditions, or caused by an anatomical defect.
The materials used in bone regeneration are: the patient's own bone (autograft), human bone harvested from other subjects (allograft), animal bone (xenograft) or synthetic bone (alloplast). These regenerations are necessary in order to place dental implants or to restore anatomical contours for aesthetic purposes.
- Transplantation of teeth or tooth germs.
- Suturing/apposition of a nerve trunk during a procedure.
- External or internal sinus lift – the procedure by which the sinus floor is raised so that, after healing, dental implants can be placed in the maxillary bone.
- Apicectomy / apical resection – sectioning and removal of the apical portion of the tooth roots (bacterially contaminated). Following such surgical procedures, the practitioner usually also recommends additional treatment with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, strict hygiene of the area concerned, as well as monitoring of the healing process.
