Ten patients who required two or more anterior teeth extractions were utilized in this study. Extraction procedures were carried out with a full thickness surgical flap approach. After flap reflection, teeth were removed with a minimum of trauma to the surrounding bone. Following extraction silicone‐based impression techniques were used to produce a model of the alveolar process and small metal pins were placed in the alveolus to be used as fixed points to make measurements of ridge dimensions. One socket was covered with an expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) barrier membrane (experimental site); the other socket was a conventional control. The soft tissue flaps were then mobilized using periosteal releasing incision and the wound closed with ePTFE mattress sutures. Six months following extraction, patients were treated with flap surgery to expose both extraction sites to remove the ePTFE membranes and to measure ridge dimensions using the pins as fixed points. Clinical and model measurements have shown statistically significant better ridge dimensions at experimental sites than at control (P ≤ 0.05). Three patients with exposed membranes had similar dimensional changes as controls. Results from this study suggested that this improved technique offers a predictable alveolar ridge maintenance enhancing the bone quality for dental implant procedures and esthetic restorative dentistry. J Periodontol 1997;68:563–570.

These results prove that this new CM was as effective and predictable as the CTG for attaining a band of keratinized tissue, but its use was associated with a significantly lower patient morbidity.

These results prove that this new CM was as effective and predictable as the CTG for attaining a band of keratinized tissue.

No abstract

Both therapies led to short-term improvement of the measured parameters; neither was superior to the other.

Although these results are not conclusive, mostly due to a lack of a large enough sample population, the statistically significant results shown in this investigation tend to support the use of gingival augmentation procedures in prosthetic patients with insufficient keratinized gingiva and/or shallow or absent vestibules, when they cannot demonstrate adequate plaque control.

Both therapies led to significant short- and long-term improvements in the outcome variables assessed.

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