Bone Regeneration for Oral & Maxillofacial Applications by A/Prof Goh Bee Tin

Bone is the world’s second-most transplanted tissue. Bone grafts are in high demand globally due to increasing prevalence of bone damage caused by ageing, diseases, and accidents. Bone grafts are also widely used by dental surgeons to restore bone in the oral-maxillofacial region, such as alveolar ridge augmentation for dental implant installation, mandibular reconstruction after tumour resection or trauma, and alveolar cleft reconstruction.

The current gold standard for bone graft is autogenous bone. The donor site may be at various locations, such as the mandibular ramus, chin, iliac crest, or calvarium.

To meet the clinical needs of bone reconstruction or augmentation in the oral-maxillofacial region, the team at the National Dental Research Institute Singapore has been collaborating with bioengineers and material scientists to develop novel devices and innovative approaches to bone regeneration. The techniques are kept simple, minimally invasive and relatively inexpensive so that they may be easily adopted in clinical practice. An overview of the latest research and development will be presented in this lecture.