An experimental rabbit model for jaw-bone healing

The purpose of this investigation was to study the structural and topographical bone anatomy of the right and left edentulous areas between the incisors and molars in the rabbit maxilla with regard to the symmetry of the bone, and to assess the degree of spontaneous healing of surgical defects. Anatomical and radiographic examinations together with analysis of serial histological ground sections in ten rabbits disclosed no statistically significant differences between the two sides regarding the different bone-tissue structures, i.e. they exhibit a sufficient degree of symmetry to serve as a useful bilateral test-control model. Surgical defects were made on one side of the jaw (test side) in a group of eight rabbits. This resulted in an average loss of 17% of the total bone volume after a healing period of four weeks as compared to the untreated control side. It was concluded that surgically-created defects do not show completely spontaneous healing. From a histological section of the test side, it was possible to redraw the original bone contour by interpolation between unaffected areas of bone, coronal and apical to the defect. This means that the test side of this model can also serve as its own control with regard to the amount of regenerated tissue, given that there is unaffected bone, coronal and apical to the defect.