Alveolar ridge deficiency hampers placement of dental implants in functionally optimal position. This warrants hard-tissue augmentation using bone grafts. Lately, the use of autogenous tooth bone graft material is gaining a momentum. However, tedious and time-consuming chair-side preparation limits its use. Allograft using human extracted teeth can be a better alternative to tackle these practical issues. Hence, we prepared "Whole Human Tooth Allograft (whole tooth allograft [WTA])" following standard protocols of tissue bank at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India. The efficacy of WTA was evaluated in a 43-year-old patient who reported with Seibert Class-III alveolar ridge deficiency in the right maxillary canine region. Three-dimensional changes were evaluated on clinical and radiographic parameters at baseline and at 4-month follow-up. A clinicoradiographic comparative analysis of height and width measurements revealed a successful three-dimensional alveolar ridge augmentation. The finding of the present case report underscores clinical safety and good bone-forming potential of WTA.
Keywords: Autograft; ridge augmentation; sticky bone; tooth graft.