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When placing dental implants, there may be a surgical flap to reposition. The flap can be sutured or held in place with a stent that protects the flap and maintains its position and immobility. Use of a bis-acryl stent may be preferable to sutures or other materials in many cases. Bis-acryl is easily applied from an auto-mixing gun. Stents may be preferable to sutures in that there is no ''wicking effect,'' where bacteria colonize the suture beneath the healing surgical wound. Additionally, many times there is no submucosa to suture to, and the sides of the wound may not allow appropriate flap positioning and immobility with sutures. In these situations an acryl stent may be placed for easy and proper flap positioning and healing.
Key Words: tissue immobility, surgical flap, apically positioned flap, dental implant, healing
ABBREVIATION
PMM: polymethylmethacrylate
INTRODUCTION
Adental implant surgical flap may need to be repositioned appropriately and fixed into place to cover a surgical site or augment the zone of attached gingiva. This can be done with sutures, a stent, or both. Stents were first used in oral surgery by a 19th-century London dentist, Charles T. Stent (1807-1885).1 He used a custom-made ''improved'' gutta-percha molded material dressing to guide oral surgical wound healing. The eponymous term ''stent'' was then used by plastic surgeons in the 20th century. The term has been used to describe a device that guides, supports, or maintains healing tissue.2,3 Recently, the term has been used to describe a device that maintains patency of an artery or ureter or other anatomical conveyer. Contemporary stents are made from a multitude of materials. A stent is not a surgical template or guide.
Stents can be made of several different kinds of materials and are produced by different manufacturers (Barricaid, Dentsply, Milford, Del; Coe-Pak, Coe Pak GC America, Alsip, Ill). Periodontal pack dressing can be a stent. A stent protects and immobilizes the postsurgical site and enhances keratinized tissue formation. The increased zone of keratinized tissue makes for a functional implant outcome. A bis-acryl stent can be made immediately and easily to fixate a surgical flap as described herein.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
A fast and easy technique to create a stent is to use an auto-mix gun to...