AN EXPERIMENTAL RABBIT MODEL FOR JAW-BONE HEALING

The purpose of this investigation was to study the structural and topo graphical bone anatomy of the right and left edentulous areas between the incisors and molars in the rabbit maxilla with regard to the symme try of the bone, and to assess the degree of spontaneous healing of su rgical defects. Anatomical and radiographic examinations together with analysis of serial histological ground sections in ten rabbits disclo sed no statistically significant differences between the two sides reg arding the different bone-tissue structures, i.e. they exhibit a suffi cient degree of symmetry to serve as a useful bilateral test-control m odel. Surgical defects were made on one side of the jaw (test side) in a group of eight rabbits. This resulted in an average loss of 17% of the total bone volume after a healing period of four weeks as compared to the untreated control side. It was concluded that surgically-creat ed defects do not show completely spontaneous healing. From a histolog ical section of the test side, it was possible to redraw the original bone contour by interpolation between unaffected areas of bone, corona l and apical to the defect. This means that the test side of this mode l can also serve as its own control with regard to the amount of regen erated tissue, given that there is unaffected bone, coronal and apical to the defect.