Guided Tissue Regeneration

This is a technique we use to regenerate periodontal tissues. These are all the tissues we have lost around a tooth due to periodontal disease. We must remember that the tissues around a tooth are bone, cementum, and ligament, and with this procedure, we are going to recover the lost bone, cementum, and ligament around the tooth and we are going to improve the prognosis and life of the tooth.

I make this clarification because there are other procedures where we will only recover one of the three or two of the three tissues, and when this happens, we are talking about repair and not guided tissue regeneration.

For this procedure, we must first do a good open flap debridement, and after this, we will be able to see well the loss of tissues and the characteristics of the defect. It is at this moment that we decide whether or not to do guided tissue regeneration.

If we decide to do it, we will proceed to place a biocompatible membrane, which can be resorbable or non-resorbable depending on the case, around the tooth with the purpose of separating the gum from the other tissues and giving the opportunity to the cells of the periodontal ligament to form the lost tissues (bone, cementum, and ligament). Many times we use bone grafts to achieve regeneration.