Can The Bone From Jaw Reduction Be Used For An Orbital Implant?

Q: Dr. Eppley, If you remove some chin or jaw reduction surgery, could that removed bone be milled and  “processed” to replace a small silicon implant for temporal or suporalateral orbital implant? This is for a patient who wants to use all his/her own body tissues. All foreign material, including silicon implants, will trigger and interact with the patient’s immune system.

A: Bone can be recycled from another regional surgery and used as an onlay graft material…that is not new and has a long historical precedence for so doing in craniofacial surgery. The question is not about whether it can be done in aesthetic facial surgery enhancements but rather one of effectiveness for what one is trying to achieve. For its use as a facial augmentation material it can be milled into small chips, mixed with fibrin glue and used as a paste to be placed on bone. For small augmentation areas like the cheeks, chin or tail of the brow this bone graft onlay approach may be effective. But for the soft tissue temporal area such bone grafts would be useless and fat injection grafting is the more appropriate autologous technique.

Dr. Barry Eppley

World-Renowned Plastic Surgeon