ABSTRACT
Introduction: Alveolar bone remodeling after tooth extraction has been long considered unavoidable. Ridgeresorption is greatest within 6 months. Bone dimensional changes complicate tooth replacement therapy.Recently, the use of biomaterials for ridge preservation has been researched thoroughly. The main question iswhether there are any benefits of bone grafting to the extraction socket. Objectives: The aim of the study was todetermine the effect that socket filling with a bone graft has on alveolar ridge volume loss as compared withtooth extraction alone. Materials and methods: A database search was conducted according to the PRISMAguidelines. We searched for studies published between 01.10.2012 and 01.10.2017. Results: Five studiesinvestigated alveolar ridge bucco-oral dimension preservation using xenograft. Overall, the interventions withthis graft were more beneficial in terms of width maintenance than tooth extraction alone. Four articles analyzedsocket bucco-oral dimension maintenance using synthetic alloplast. The results were inconclusive, as 3 studiesreported greater width and one article described a greater bone width in the control group. Four studiesinvestigated the preservation of alveolar bone height after socket preservation. In the bovine derived xenograftsubgroup, the effect of ridge height was greater than extraction alone. Two studies researched ridge heightpreservation after extraction using synthetic alloplast. The results were in favor of the test group, but werestatistically insignificant. Conclusions: Alveolar ridge preservation using xenograft shows greater dimensionalpreservation than no graft. The results for the alloplast group were inconclusive. More and less heterogeneousstudies are needed to compare these materials.