The Effect of Autogenous Demineralized Dentin Block Graft Versus Autogenous Bone Block Graft on Alveolar Ridge Preservation: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Many studies have reported an approximately 50% reduction in alveolar bone both the horizontal and vertical directions over 12 months with more than two-thirds of the reduction occurring in the first three months after extraction. Alveolar ridge preservation is a procedure that attempts to reduce bone dimensional changes that naturally take place following tooth extraction. A broadly recognized approach is the maintenance of bone walls through bone substitute (graft) delivery into the socket, where guided bone regeneration may be a requisite. Autogenous bone graft has osteogenic and osteoinductive effect. however, when attempts were made to use autologous bone chips in socket preservation, they failed to promote healing or stimulate hard tissue formation in the socket. On the other hand, autogenous bone block graft from the tuberosity has shown a feasible, user-friendly, low-cost solution for minimizing soft and hard tissue collapse and dimensional loss following single-rooted tooth extraction.

Moreover, root dentin block is composed of Type I collagen matrix with several osteoinductive non-collagenous proteins such as bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP) and dentin matrix proteins. Geometrically, alveolar bone morphology was maintained by dentin block graft as well as it has micropores (dentinal tubules) of 3-5 μm diameter and macropores of 0.2-0.3 mm diameter for enhancing osteoinductive and osteoconductive functions.

Both demineralized dentin block and autogenous bone block grafts has been utilized for alveolar ridge preservation or augmentation but the superiority of one form over the other is not yet clear