Can Cutting Bone And Using Bone Cements Work As Well As Facial Implants?

Q: Dr. Eppley, In your experience what’s the least expected facial implant material to get infected? Also can maxillofacial bone cements or pastes be able to be used for the chiseled look? Also there’s a procedure where you cut the cheekbone and advanced the bone then added plates and screws can that give masculine cheeks/zygomatic arch look?
And does the bone grow into to the cut cheeks to reattach in case if plates ever needed to be removed? Is there any sort of special maxillofacial bone cut to the jaw to just add width and some drop down? Thank you.

A: While I appreciate the nature of your all of your questions, each one of them represents the same issue…you are searching for non-implant procedures to do what facial implants do. And the answer to all of them is the same…they either do not exist or do not work very well at all. There is only one bone procedure that replicates what an implant does..the sliding genioplasty. Otherwise, every other osteotomy/bone moving method works very poorly…and I know because I have tried them all over the years.

There are many factors that go into how implants can get infected so it is not as simple as one material is necessarily better than the other. If handled well, they all should have th same rate of risk of infectivity. But if I had to pick one just based on the material alone, it would be silicone because of its smooth and non-porous surface. It is harder for bacteria to get a good hold on this type of surface as opposed to a rougher irregular one like Medpor.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis,Indiana