[ Facial allograft transplantation and basal implantology(cortically anchored disk-design implants)]

We report a case of total oral rehabilitation with basal implants (cortically anchored disk-design implants) on a patient who received a facial allograft 1 year earlier.

A 31-year-old patient was suffering from a plexiforme neurofibroma spread into the soft tissues of the oral cavity with huge deformations of the jaws. The operation consisted in pulling out numerous supernumerary impacted teeth, removing unnecessary soft tissues, settling six basal implants in the maxilla and seven in the mandible. The following day, two resin bridges were adjusted and cemented onto the implant abutments. The permanent bridges were settled 2 months and half later. The outcome was still unremarkable 2 years after the implant procedure.

This case report raises important issues, notably the relevance of an oral rehabilitation with implant-supported prostheses on an immunosuppressed patient. In this specific case, this was impossible to achieve using removable prostheses. A facial reconstruction with its plastic, functional, and social goals seemed inconsistent without an oral rehabilitation. Even if they have not been published, cases of grafted patients with dental implants are unexceptional. Lastly, this rehabilitation has been planned for a particularly monitored patient. The second important question regards the choice of the basal implantology. This option has been motivated by the possibility to complete the case in one sole operation with provisional prostheses cemented the day after that act like orthopaedic external fixators providing an exceptional primary stability. The cortical anchorage, which was the only reliable on this patient, allowed to avoid bone grafting. Finally, the particular thinness of the implant emergence limits to the minimum the communications between bone and oral cavity. We would like to stress that the only objective of this observation was to document a specific case and possibly to open the way to a scientific study in accordance with the regulations of clinical research.