Dv. Dado et al., LONG-TERM ASSESSMENT OF EARLY ALVEOLAR BONE-GRAFTS USING 3-DIMENSIONAL COMPUTER-ASSISTED TOMOGRAPHY - A PILOT-STUDY, Plastic and reconstructive surgery, 99(7), 1997, pp. 1840-1845
Fifteen patients with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate who had
primary alveolar bone grafting were studied with computer-assisted to
mography at a mean age of 12 years. Keeping the maxillary alveolar cre
st parallel to the plane of the scan, 1.5-mm cuts of the maxilla were
made from the infraorbital rim to the gingival third of the crowns of
the teeth. A single operator reformatted the data into three-dimension
al images using the Maxiview 3200 computer workstation. This allowed e
xamination of the position, size, and spatial relationship of the graf
ted area and quantification of the amount of bone coverage of root sur
face and bone height of the alveolus in or adjacent to the graft site.
Ten patients showed a lateral incisor in the line of the cleft. The a
verage bony coverage of these tooth roots was 76.5 percent. In the fiv
e patients in whom there was lateral incisor agenesis, the canine root
had average bony coverage of 82.6 percent. The average height of bone
at the lateral incisor was 8.7 mm; at the canine, 14.1 mm. In two pat
ients in whom there was only 42 percent tooth root coverage, the teeth
were still viable, stable, and without mobility. Computed tomographic
(CT) scans of the 15 patients demonstrated good graft survival with a
dequate volume. The functional and aesthetic status of the dentition i
n the area of the cleft also was demonstrated.