Peri-implant soft tissue management - utilizing autogenous gingival graft as a powerful tool

It has been said, “Bone set the tone, but tissue is the issue.” In the field of periodontology and implantology, many research interests have been focused on bone regeneration. However, while researchers have accomplished main breakthrough in hard tissue regeneration, clinicians find it is in fact more challenging to handle soft tissue problems around natural dentition and dental implants. To successfully manage soft tissue around dental implants, it requires clinician’s comprehensive knowledge for pre-surgical planning and high level of surgical skills for precise execution to achieve esthetic, function, and longevity. In our daily practice, autogenous gingival graft can be utilized in different clinical situations and provide surgeon great potential and freedom to increase the quality and quantity of peri-implant soft tissue for more pleasing outcome.

This Presentation will be focus on:

Learning objectives:

• Describing the clinical situations which will require peri-implant soft tissue management
• Become familiar with the periodontal plastic surgical technique that can help the clinician to utilize the autogenous soft tissue graft for soft tissue
• Long- term maintenance considerations and potential future research direction