MR CRAIG MALLORIE 
Multi-Award Winning Specialist Oral Surgeon

After extracting a tooth there is a socket left in the jaw bone. If there was a large infection in the bone then there may be a sizeable bone defect. It can be advantageous to perform a socket grafting, or ridge preservation, procedure atthe time of the extraction in order to try and preserve a great a bone volume as possible inorder to facilitate future dental implant placement. Usually 100-percent bovine bone particles are placed into the socket and secured with a porcine collagen membrane and then left to heal for 6 months. During this time your bone integrates with the graft material and becomes a solid block of bone. This can enable simple implant placement by reduces the risk of more advanced grafting required during the implant placement procedure. For larger defects sometimes a combination of bone harvested from the local area of the patient's jaw is combined with the bovine graft material if required.