Abstract

Because clinicians are placing more dental implants, it is becoming more important to maintain bone volume after tooth extraction. This article discusses the various bone-augmentation materials available to the clinician and illustrates a case report of particulate mineralized bone allograft (Puros) placement after extraction. Exposure of the grafted site after 5 months revealed a hard bony structure. Human histologic analysis at the light microscopic level revealed nonvital spicules of mature calcified bone having a highly organized matrix surrounded by viable noncalcified immature bone matrix, or osteoid. It was concluded that mineralized human allograft demonstrated the formation or remodeling of bone histologically and was clinically useful to maintain bone volume for implant placement after extraction. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first publication to demonstrate human histology of particulate mineralized bone allograft (Puros) after placement into an extraction site.