Maxillofacial bone augmentation and replacement

Bone is a connective tissue with mineralized matrix, and it functions to provide mechanical support and physical forms for the human skeleton and to provide a vast storage of calcium for homeostasis. Osseous defects in the maxillofacial bone can cause severe functional abnormalities and aesthetic deformities. They can occur as a result of congenital abnormalities, ablative surgery, or traumatic avulsion. These defects may or may not be healed automatically by the body, depending on the size and nature of the defects. Small defects can be healed efficiently via the body’s regeneration process, but large defects cannot be healed without some assistive measures. In many cases, these measures require the use of bone grafts or other synthetic substitutes to fill the bony deficits. In this chapter, methods and synthetic materials used for maxillofacial bone augmentation and replacement are discussed.