Remodeling of calvarial graft in increased atrophic maxillary thickness. A prospective clinical study

This study evaluated the autogenous graft resorption rate in a calvarial block graft in the anterior region of an atrophic maxilla and compared it with the thickness of the remaining ridge.

Twelve patients were included in the study. They were submitted to cranial calotte graft surgery, and there were 40 blocks in total. The thicknesses of the ridges in the crest, middle and apical regions of the blocks were evaluated by computed tomography scan at the times: preoperative (T0), 48 hours (T1) and 6 months (T2) after the reconstructions.

The resorption of the blocks from T1 to T2 was 13.4%. The greatest remodeling occurred in the alveolar bone crest (20.07%), followed by the middle portion (12.28%), and the apical region (9.5%), but the three regions did not significantly differ between times T1 and T2 (crest P = .07, middle P = .124, apical P = .131). Recipient site with the lowest thickness had the greatest resorption rates (up to 2 mm = 17.6%; from 2 to 4 mm = 17.52%) while than those with a thickness greater than 4 mm had a mean resorption of 8.81%.

The resorption of the grafts in this study was 13.4%. Higher resorption rates were observed in the alveolar crest areas, where the ridges were less thick.