Purpose: The purpose of this report was to describe a surgical technique for performing horizontal alveolar distraction of the knife-edge maxillary ridge.
Patient and methods: The patient was a 17-year-old woman with atrophy of the alveolar rim in the anterior upper jaw, which had inadequate width for implant placement. The transport segment was constructed by the osteotomy of the labial cortex of the alveolus. A transport plate of a distractor (LEAD system; Stryker Leibinger, Kalamazoo, MI) was placed on the transport segment. The distraction rod was inserted horizontally, and put in contact with the palatal cortex at the top. A base plate was not placed.
Results: The alveolar distraction was successfully performed to gain 6.0 mm in width and 0.5 mm in height, allowing placement of three 14-mm implants. All the implants were integrated so as to support the prosthesis.
Conclusions: Alveolar distraction can be useful for augmenting the narrow ridge horizontally and placement of implants.