The bony residual ridge in man

Area of Science:

• Oral surgery
• Dental anatomy
• Bone biology

Background:

• Tooth loss leads to alveolar bone remodeling.
• Understanding socket healing and ridge morphology is crucial for dental implantology and prosthodontics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the characteristics of bone filling tooth extraction sockets.
• To analyze the morphology of the residual alveolar ridge after tooth loss.

Main Methods:

• Examination of 120 dry skull specimens.
• Analysis of 100 radiographs from patients with missing teeth for at least three months.

Main Results:

• The bony content of extraction sockets is trabecular bone, distinct from cortical plates.
• The residual alveolar crest consists of dense trabecular bone.
• The edentulous crest shifts lingually, and the residual ridge forms a concavity, especially with multiple missing teeth.

Conclusions:

• Extraction sockets heal with differentiated trabecular bone.
• Alveolar ridge morphology undergoes significant changes post-extraction, including lingual shift and concavity formation.