Chennai: There are dentists in almost every street corner of the city. You would think supply outstrips demand. But a Chennai dentist finds that the underprivileged do not get enough dental care. They have limited access to it and experience rapid bone loss that results in losing teeth.
In conversation with News Today, Acharya Dental maxillofacial prosthodontist, Dr Varun Acharya, shows how bone can be regrown to save teeth in such cases.
Talking about how common the issue is, he explains, “In India, a lot of people from lower socio-economic classes suffer from bone loss, gum disease and cavities. Failure to get proper treatment results in losing teeth. It is also very common among smokers and people with uncontrolled diabetes and people who maintain poor oral hygiene.”
Talking about detecting bone loss, he says, “Usually people with a shaky tooth or a missing tooth come in for consultation and a scan reveals the amount of artificial bone needed for regeneration.”
“The procedure to replace a lost tooth is performed by placing dental implants into the jaw bone. However, when the patient does not have enough bone to place the dental implant, it becomes a lengthy task to place the artificial teeth. The bone degenerates when they have not had teeth for a long time or due to gum disease or infection,” says Dr Varun.
The conventional way of addressing the problem is by placing artificial bone and following the healing period, placing dental implants. Once these dental implants heal, a ceramic crown can be connected to the dental implant.
“To prevent the infection spreading to other teeth and to relieve the patient of pain, the affected tooth is extracted, following which bone grafting is performed. Once this bone graft sets in place, an artificial implant is placed; once this heals, an artificial ceramic tooth is made to fit the dental implant. The time period for this procedure takes anywhere from four months to one year,” explains Dr Varun.
When a patient does not undergo grafting, he adds, the infected area would heal with a deficient bone which will then present functional and cosmetic difficulties for when the artificial crown is made to fit the dental implant.
An additional challenge can present itself in the back of the upper jaw where the sinus has a tendency to expand at the cost of the jaw bone. The sinus is an air cavity present in a normal skull.
“The sinus bone grafting is the process of adding bone below the sinus to increase the bone available in the upper jaw for dental implant placement. The procedure involves lifting of the sinus membrane and placing an artificial bone which can receive an implant in a few months’ time.
However, with zygoma implants – a newer type of implant that is longer than the typical dental implant – the doctor opines that the entire procedure can be completed within a few months as it engages bone that has not been lost to infection in the jaw.
The doctor further says that the zygoma implant works only when a patient is missing many teeth.
“It is not a single-tooth solution. When someone has absolutely no jaw bone at all and if there is no chance of bone regrowth, the zygoma implants can be used. It is an implant which cannot work on its own and requires additional implants. Typically, 4 implants are used to restore all the teeth in a single jaw,” adds Dr Varun.
Eliminating the need for artificial bone grafting, zygoma implants can be used to deliver fixed teeth to the patient on the day of surgical procedure.