Various dental surgical techniques have advanced rapidly in recent decades, resulting in a world of painless dentistry. For bone surgery, the use of rotating burs and hand instruments with external force are major drawbacks, which even require external copious irrigation as so much heat is generated and may lead to unnecessary necrosis of tissues.
An oral and maxillofacial surgeon performs mostly the osteotomy or osteoplasty procedures for which he uses rotary burs, hand instruments, chisel mallets, etc. Various drills, and powered tools such as micromotors, and air turbines come with serrations or diamond-coated metal to cause mechanical ablation by pulverizing or shattering the bone.
Ultrasonic vibrations for osteotomy procedures can be a good replacement for rotary or invasive instruments. The technique is widely known as piezosurgery, and it reduces the potential risk of vital tissue injury such as nerves blood vessels, arteries, etc.
What may happen if burs or drills are used for bone surgery?
The burs or drills during osteotomy procedures have a serrated surface which can cause several issues to the vital tissues and bone.
·        The speed of the bur can cause heat generation, leading to tissue damage
·        Enormous loss of bone
·        Loss of Osteocytes
·        Difficult to handle the instrument in case of cortical or trabecular bone
·        Imprecision of the cut
·        Higher torque moment
·        High risk of soft tissue injury
·        High chance of injury to the blood vessels, nerves, or sinus membrane
·        Chance of bacterial contamination
·        For patients, it increases the post-operative trauma
Wide Applications of Piezosurgery Unit in dentistry:
The demand for improved precision and safety during osteotomy procedures led to the development of piezoelectric surgery that works by ultrasonic transduction. It improves the cutting precision by micrometric cutting action without loss of bone. Because hemostasis is maintained at the operation site, and the reduced risk of soft tissue damage, the patient feels lesser or minimal post-operative trauma, as well as healing, becomes faster.
The piezosurgery unit has a wide range of applications in the field of dentistry. Some of them are:
1. Oral Surgery:Â
Specific dentoalveolar procedures like ridge expansion, endodontic surgery, cyst removal, impacted tooth extraction, etc. can be done very effortlessly without any damage to the vital structures and with minimal invasion using a piezosurgery unit. In procedures where high precision is required, a piezosurgery unit using micro-vibration delivers an effective osteotomy causing minimal noise and discomfort.
2. Implantology:
Bone can be augmented in oral surgery, notably in implantology, by harvesting blocks, breaking crestal bone, and elevating the sinus floor. Overheating during implant-site preparation has a deleterious impact on the osseointegration process and the final outcome of implant rehabilitation. As a result, a specially designed set of piezosurgery tips can be used to prepare the implant site. During implant site preparation using the piezosurgery tip, the socket wall is prepared very precisely.
3· Periodontology:
Reconstructive surgery is gradually becoming more common with the help of piezosurgery. As a result, piezosurgery allows for precise, clean, and smooth cutting while maintaining remarkable visibility. Bone block preparation is now quicker and safer with the piezosurgery unit.
During periodontal surgical operations, piezosurgery allows for the thorough preparation of small bone fragments, allowing for the removal of small amounts of bone next to exposed root surfaces without injuring the tooth surfaces. It also allows for the removal of inflammatory tissues, root surface debridement, root planing, and ankylosed tooth separation from bone.
4. Orthodontics/Orthognathic Surgery:
Piezosurgery has been utilized for small orthodontic microsurgery as well as orthognathic surgery such as bilateral sagittal split osteotomy, surgically aided rapid maxillary expansion and Le fort I Osteotomy procedure etc. Because of the abundant irrigation with cooled saline solution on the surgical site, piezosurgery is also safe in terms of minimized indirect thermal injury to the bony surfaces and surrounding tissues.
Conclusion:
When compared to existing techniques for treating bone tissues, piezosurgery looks to be a more efficient and conservative device. Because the bone cuts selectively, significant nerve lesions can be avoided, and minimally invasive procedures can be performed. Surgery X from Woodpecker comes with exceptional cutting efficiency for minimally invasive bone cutting in a variety of maxillofacial procedures. Its high-performance handpiece along with the versatile tips enables high-precision osteotomy procedures.
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