Bone Grafting

Although the importance of oral health is becoming increasingly understood by both patients and colleagues, leading to a decrease of individuals suffering from an edentate status, total or partial edentulism remains a common health problem. Often these patients are affected by severe atrophy of the jaws, which makes rehabilitation using traditional implant-prosthetic techniques very complex due to the residual amount of basal bone available. For this reason, predictable therapeutic alternatives have been proposed over the years and supported by various studies in the scientific literature including the use of bone regeneration methods through the use of biomaterials, membranes, angled/short implants and bone expansion/condensation techniques. However, although the above-mentioned techniques lead to excellent results, in Cawood and Howell classes V-VI severe atrophies, it is often necessary to use major bone volumes increase techniques of which the gold standard is the harvesting and grafting of autologous bone. This chapter aims to focus on the application of these techniques in severe atrophy of the upper jaw, describing in detail the main harvesting sites, the graft preparation and fixation in the receiving site, including morbidity based on the type of surgery performed and any possible complication that may occur.