Advanced Oral and Maxillofacial Implantology

The book at hand is an international text on advanced oral and maxillofacial implantology. It is the fruition of over 40 specialists from 8 countries. The procedures presented herein are meant for expert implantologists; these procedures (including sinus floor grafting and ridge augmentation, etc.) are not for beginners or the novice; and require a great deal of skill, training and experience to perform. Although the majority of these operations require only local anesthesia and sometimes sedation in an outpatient setting, a significant number of these procedures are major operations and need to be performed by trained OMF surgeons and may require hospitalization and treatment under general anesthesia. Recruiting national and international world-renowned experts in implantology from 8 countries to write the chapters of this book was indeed a difficult undertaking. The authors generously present their cases and state-of-the-art techniques in an educational manner; actual cases were treated and their outcomes are presented thus allowing the surgeon to choose the technique which best addresses the dilemma at hand and yields the best result for that particular case. Problems commonly arise when there is insufficient bone to place implants. Operations are then needed to graft bone prior to accommodation of implants; these operations range from splitting the alveolar ridge (for horizontal ridge deficiency) to onlay grafting or sandwich techniques (to manage vertical ridge deficiency). Several solutions to solve these difficult issues are presented in this text. In the final chapter, extraoral implants are also addressed; they provide anchorage for facial prostheses and are indeed artistic as well as scientific. I would like to take the opportunity to thank all my national and international colleagues who helped me compile the chapters necessary for this text, especially the invaluable help and kind guidance of Prof. Peter Hunt, a genuine icon in the field of dental implantology by my standards, for his generosity in submitting four informative educational chapters to this text. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for putting up with me all the long hours of the night while I was working and they were sleeping. I sincerely hope this book will be of use to all clinicians who practice this fascinating discipline for the benefit of those who need it.