Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Facultad de Odontología
Research Seminar 2020-1
María Camila Tejada Figueroa
20.05.2020

Paper: “Dental Implants in Oral Cancer Reconstruction”

When diagnosing cancer, a person will go on a long journey that can affect physical health,
mental well-being, and relationships with loved ones. People undergoing cancer treatment
mostly experience parts of their bodies that are surgically altered or removed. In oral cancer
case can leave issues that involve the maxillary and mandibular area and there is where
prosthodontic dentist enters to restore the physiology, function and esthetic characteristics
that may have been lose during the process of the disease. Use of dental implants in oral
cancer reconstruction has become an important aspect of the reconstructive plan for these
patients. It can be divided in two types of implants: For maxillary reconstruction it uses a
retention of a prosthetic device, like palatal obturator. And, for dental rehabilitation after
bony reconstruction of the jaws.
Many years ago, dentist use the palatal obturator as the main medium of reconstruction of
the maxilla after extirpative surgery and his impact is so big that now a day it’s been
considered as the gold standard in maxillary reconstruction. Several factors must be
considered before surgery, including the nature of the defect, the size, the extent of the
maxillary resection, the degree of soft tissue loss, the state of the patient's teeth and how it
can be properly separated the oral and nasal cavities. A technique that is going provide
bone that is going to be use in the implant is taking it from the fibula from the patient, it has
proven efficacy and because it came from itself will not reject the tissue. In that the dentist
may put the implants and this end with the recovery of the functions.
There are many factors that make oral rehabilitation complex in cancer patients with
deficits jaws due to the lack of retention and stability presented by the tissues of the oral
cavity. These patients’ frequent alterations in the functions of the stomatognathic apparatus
that significantly decrease their quality of life. The reduction of these limitations through
reconstruction have a great impact on their quality of life that we can provide from our
profession.