Ultrasound Indications in Implant Related and Other Oral Surgery

Safety and efficiency are the priorities of performing implant related and other oral surgeries. While the incidence of intraoperative and postoperative complications of oral surgeries is low, they can be serious, irreversible, and life-threatening. Some examples of surgical complications are excessive hemorrhage, nerve damage, infection, etc. Fortunately, most complications are preventable by thorough medical/dental history review and understanding of local anatomy. In the literature, dental ultrasound has been researched for its ability to measure soft tissue thickness, edentulous ridge width, bone density, and cortical bone thickness. Gingival phenotype, primarily a function of its thickness, is a very important clinical parameter and can be accurately determined by ultrasound. Another promising indication of ultrasonography is to measure the edentulous ridge width and cortical plate quality before implant surgery or ridge augmentation non-invasively without ionizing radiation. Therefore, ultrasound could effectively replace some use of ionizing cone-beam computed tomography. Additionally, ultrasound can be very useful to identify vital structures important to oral surgeries at chairside, for example, the greater palatine foramen, lingual nerve, and mental foramen. The incidence of nerve and vessel damage could be reduced by knowing the exact location of these vital structures. Efficient local anesthesia could be guided by ultrasound. During the implant surgery, ultrasound may be used to detect the remaining distance between the surgical drills to the maxillary sinus, the inferior alveolar canal, and the bone plate. In conclusion, ultrasound can potentially become a clinical imaging tool to evaluate relevant important anatomical structures in the treatment planning phase and during the surgery. This anatomical knowledge could assist surgeons to perform safe and efficient surgeries in the oral cavity.