Autogenous Dentin Graft for Alveolar Ridge Preservatio

When a tooth is extracted, the bone around the empty socket naturally shrinks over time, which can make it difficult to place a dental implant later without additional bone-building procedures. This study investigated whether grafting the socket with the patient's own extracted tooth material, processed into a graft (autogenous dentin graft), can help preserve this bone. The study also examined whether adding platelet-rich fibrin (PRF), a concentrate prepared from the patient's own blood that is rich in healing factors, could further improve outcomes. A total of 56 extraction sockets were randomly assigned to one of four treatment approaches: no grafting (natural healing), dentin graft alone, dentin graft combined with PRF, or a freeze-dried bone allograft, which is a commonly used bone substitute for comparison. Four months after treatment, small bone samples were taken from each site at the time of dental implant placement and examined under the microscope to measure how much new bone had formed, along with other markers of healing such as blood vessel formation and a bone-growth protein called BMP-2. The results showed that sockets treated with dentin graft healed at least as well as those treated with the standard bone substitute, and that combining dentin graft with PRF produced the best healing results of all groups tested. These findings suggest that a patient's own extracted tooth, which would otherwise be discarded, may serve as an effective and low-cost graft material for preserving bone after tooth extraction, particularly when combined with PRF.