No abstract

Mucormycosis, which is a life threatening condition, is one of the side effects experienced by post-COVID-19 patients. Early identification and timely treatment are essential to stop the dissemination of the disease, since invasive mucormycosis has a very high fatality rate and significant disease dispersion. Conventional diagnostic techniques, including clinical diagnosis, serology, histopathology and radiology, have limitations in diagnosing the disease at an early stage. This warrants the need for advanced diagnostic tools such as nucleic acid diagnostics, advanced serological tests (ELISpot), PCR (pan-Mucorale test) and multiplex PCR. These techniques have been introduced to identify this invasive fungal infection at an incipient stage, thereby helping clinicians to prevent adverse outcomes. The use of biosensors and micro-needle based diagnostic methodologies will pave the way for devising more point-of-care tests that can be employed for the detection of mucormycosis at an incipient stage. The present review discusses the current techniques available and their drawbacks, and the usefulness of advanced diagnostic tools. Furthermore, the possibility of using future diagnostic methods for the diagnosis of mucormycosis is highlighted.

A deficient alveolar ridge in the maxillary anterior site often warrants ridge augmentation prior to prosthetic rehabilitation, in order to enhance functional and esthetic outcomes. In particular, if implant therapy is planned in a deficient jaw, ridge augmentation is preferred before or simultaneous to implant placement in order to overcome the anatomic limitations of the residual jaw bone crest. Guided bone regeneration (GBR) is the gold standard technique for bone regeneration in patients with atrophic ridges, and it is regarded as one of the most predictable techniques for ridge augmentation. Non-resorbable membranes, such as titanium mesh are preferred in the GBR procedure, due to the enhanced rigidity and microporous structure, facilitating vascularity. However, the most common disadvantage of non-resorbable membranes, when used in vertical augmentation, is the soft tissue dehiscence. However, tissue stability is essential for the long-term successful outcomes of GBR. The present study focuses on the evaluation of the clinical and radiographic outcomes of a patient undergoing GBR using customized titanium mesh and xenograft simultaneous to implant placement in the maxillary anterior region. In addition to the hard tissue augmentation, soft tissue augmentation was performed using injectable platelet-rich fibrin and a collagen membrane. Following 6 months of GBR, the augmentation site exhibited clinically and radiographically significant gain in ridge dimensions, with an average bone gain of 2.8 and 3.1 mm in horizontal and vertical dimensions, respectively with stable soft tissue support.