Journal of Dental Medicine

Background and Aim: One of the complications following major oral surgeries is mucosal defects and delayed healing process. Up to now, various mucocutaneous grafts have been used in this field and recently, amniotic membrane has been proposed as a biological dressing in dermatologic, ophthalmologic and otolaryngologic practices. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the healing process following human amniotic membrane graft on oral keratinized mucosa of rabbit.

Materials and Methods: In this experimental animal study, two surgical mucosal defects with the same size were made in palatal mucosa of 10 rabbits with the same weight, gender and race and a graft of human amniotic membrane was used on one of the defects. On the 7th, 14th and 28th postoperative days, surgical biopsies were randomly obtained from grafted and ungrafted regions of 3, 4 and 3 rabbits, respectively and submitted for microscopic study.

Results: According to the results, grafted regions showed more surface epithelialization and thicker newly formed epithelium. Also inflammatory cells infiltration was less in these areas. In all cases, there was a remarkable cartilage formation in the connective tissue of the recipient sites.

Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the use of amniotic membrane graft in oral surgery could be effective in healing process. Additional studies should be done using animal and human models with more samples. Furthermore, the formation of cartilage in the grafted sites and its possible potential in reconstruction of bone defects, needs to be studied.

Background and Aim: The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the osteopromotion property of homogenous demineralized dentin matrix (HDDM) on experimental surgical bone defects in parietal bone of rabbits using the guided bone regeneration (G.B.R.) technique incorporating Paroguide collagen membrane.

Materials and Methods: Surgical bone defects were created in 6 Newzland white rabbits (2 defects in each rabbit). The defects were protected by Paroguide membrane alone (control group) or filled with HDDM and protected by Paroguide membrane (experimental group). The HDDM had been obtained from the central incisors of rabbits. The rabbits were sacrificed after 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 days and the defects examined histologically. Data were analyzed using pair-t test. The level of significance was set at p=0.03.

Results: Histologically, the volume of newly formed bone matrix was significantly greater in the experimental group. No inflammatory reaction was seen in either experimental or control groups.

Conclusion: Bone regeneration was accelerated in the bone defects filled with HDDM in comparison to the control group.

Background and Aims: The present study was designed for evaluation of bovine demineralized bone matrix (DBM) in healing process of bone defects and comparison of bovine DBM (xenograft) and human DBM (allograft) which is used clinically.

Materials and Methods: Seven male white New Zealand rabbits were used in this study. The incision was made directly over the midsagital suture of the parietal bone. Then 3 bicortical defects were created with trephine bur No.8 (8mm diameter). The defects were randomly filled with graft materials. One of the defects was left without any graft in all samples (as a control defect). The amount of bone formation was evaluated 3 months after surgery histopathologically. The data were analyzed using Friedman test, and when P-value was less than 0.05, the pair wise group comparison were performed by Wilcoxon (Boneferroni adjusted) test.

Results: Statistical analysis showed that there was a significant difference between bovine DBM group with control group (P=0.03). Furthermore, human DBM group was significantly different from control group (P=0.02). However, the difference between bovine DBM group and human DBM group was not statistically significant (P=0.87).

Conclusion: The results of this study showed the satisfactory bone healing in rabbit parietal bone defects filled with bovine DBM. The amount of healing in these defects was similar to bone defects which were filled with human DBM that is used clinically.