Piezosurgical treatment of crestal bone: quantitative comparison of post-extractive socket outcomes with those of traditional treatment

ObjectiveThe study aimed to quantitatively compare, for the first time, the clinical outcomes of crestal bone volume resorption in sockets undergoing traditional extraction technique (TET) or piezosurgical extraction technique (PET), also considering the influence of buccal plate thickness. Material and methodsIn this prospective study, 19 sockets were randomly treated with TET, and 18 sockets were randomly treated with PET. Furthermore, patients were split into subgroup A, with buccal bone plate thickness (BPT) 1mm, and subgroup B, with BPT>1mm. Buccal (BCH) and palatal (PCH) cortex height, bucco-palatal ridge (BPR) width were monitored at tooth extraction and after the 4-month post-extractive period of natural healing. ResultsAfter 4months, BCH, PCH and BPR width decreased more in the TET than in the PET group, but only the BPR decrease was statistically significant (P=0.034) after ANOVA test. In both TET and PET groups, all B subgroup patients showed a lower decrease than A subgroup patients for both BCH, PCH and BPR, statistically significant for PCH (P=0.019) and BPR (P<0.001) of TET group, and BPR (P=0.002) of PET group, after ANOVA. Both A and B subgroups of PET showed a statistically significant lower decrease than the corresponding subgroups of TET, comparing A (P=0.005) and B (P=0.037) subgroups for BPR, after ANOVA. ConclusionsWith both thin and thick buccal plates, the piezosurgical extraction technique of teeth significantly decreases the horizontal resorption of the hard tissue ridge, but not the vertical resorption. Moreover, buccal plate thickness seems to be a key factor in post-extractive bone resorption: the thinner the buccal plate the greater the horizontal crestal bone loss.