Alper Gultekin

By B. Alper Gultekin, Pinar Gultekin and Serdar Yalcin

Part of the book: Finite Element Analysis

By Bahattin Alper Gultekin, Erol Cansiz and Serdar Yalcin

Rehabilitation of missing teeth with dental implant-supported restorations has become a predictable treatment option in dentistry. The stability of hard and soft tissues around the implant is fundamental for long-term success. However, due to factors such as trauma, oncologic diseases, and missing teeth, vertical and horizontal bone loss is expected, and the available bone may not be suitable for optimum implant placement. Ridge augmentation procedures are applied to increase in the volume of the deficient sites for implant treatment. Autogenous block bone augmentation and guided bone regeneration (GBR) are two surgical approaches for implant placement. Autogenous bone is widely used for augmentations because of its osteogenic potential. A myriad of biomaterials, including xenografts, allografts, alloplasts, and composite grafts, are available for GBR. The aim of this chapter is to provide a brief summary of these methods and to discuss the advantages and pitfalls of ridge augmentation techniques.

Part of the book: A Textbook of Advanced Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

By Erol Cansiz, Alper Gultekin, Melek Koltuk and Sirmahan Cakarer

The term “fistula” can be defined as an improper connection between different body compartments. It can occur in different parts of the body. Although, fistulae mostly develop due to untreated chronic infections, traumatic injuries and congenital deformities, specific infections or diseases, and post-surgical healing abnormalities can also cause fistula formation. Although, there is a general classification system made by the World Health Organization to identify fistulae, specifically, in this chapter oral fistulae are divided into four different categories, namely dentoalveolar, oroantral, oronasal and orocutaneous fistulae. The diagnosis and the treatment protocols for oral fistulas are described using this specific classification and with additional new techniques introduced for the correction of the lesions. Conventional surgical methods also are summarized. The importance of the radiological examination is emphasized and the practitioners are informed of possible complications.

Part of the book: A Textbook of Advanced Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

By Bahattin Alper Gultekin and Gamze Zeynep Adem Siyli

Dental implant placement is one of the most reliable and predictable treatment choices in modern oral surgery. It requires available bone volume to resist the force during loading. There are many ways to regenerate the bone to place the implants with the desired dimensions. Guided bone regeneration, socket grafting, allograft bone block grafting, and intra- and extraoral autogenous bone block grafting are the most popular treatment approaches to reconstruct hard tissues. Autogenous bone graft is still considered the gold standard for the reconstruction of hard tissues. In addition, there are many scaffold biomaterials available that are used as templates for new bone formation. These biomaterials are helpful to not only eliminate the usage of autogenous bone grafts but also decrease patient morbidity. Another advantage of biomaterial usage in tissue regeneration is to reduce the learning curve of treatments by facilitating operative approaches. The aim of this chapter is to evaluate contemporary biomaterials that are used to reconstruct hard tissue defects in oral surgery.

Part of the book: Tissue Regeneration

By İhsan Çağlar Çınar, B. Alper Gültekin, Alper Sağlanmak and Cem Töre

The goal of modern dentistry is to return patients to oral health in a predictable fashion. The partial and complete edentulous patient may be unable to recover normal function, esthetics, comfort, or speech with a traditional removable prosthesis. The patient’s function when wearing a denture may be reduced to one sixth of the level formerly experienced with natural dentition; however, an implant prosthesis may return the function to near-normal limits. The esthetics of the edentulous patient is affected as a result of muscle and bone atrophy. In order to replace a missing tooth, the development of materials science and technology improved the materials for implant application. Nowadays, titanium has become the most popular implant material due to its advantages. The first submerged implant placed by Strock was still functioning 40 years later. Recently, zirconia implants and innovative surface designs are being researched and practiced. In this chapter, these materials will be comparatively discussed through contemporary literature and research.

Part of the book: Biomaterials