We have treated extensive jaw cysts and tumors, some that involve an entire segment of the jaw. If you have an otherwise healthy individual without associated pathology (such as jaw fracture) cleaning out the cyst and maintaining the bone architecture as you can along with closing of the tissues gives the best result. The body has an incredible ability to regenerate bone through what we call primary healing. Blood fills a defect. The blood turns into a clot. The clot becomes the architecture for new bone formation. This is not a perfect system and there may be areas that need secondary attention such as grafting, but overall we have good results with this. I have found that platelet concentrates such as PRGF can enhance this process and we often use these. I have also found that the use of bone graft materials do not seem to enhance this process and in some cases end up causing greater concerns. The most common concern would be infection since the graft material can act as foreign body. If your oral surgeon is recommending a bone graft, I would assume that they would have your best interest in mind and I would follow their recommendation.

Again, we have been performing bone graft procedures in the jaw for many years and we have tried just about everything. Based on that experience, I tend to try to keep things simple when dealing with cysts or tumors of the jaw.