AlloDerm Frequently Asked Questions
Healthy gum tissue helps keep your teeth in place, protects them from disease, and adds to your great smile. When you suffer gum tissue loss around your teeth, it can quickly lead to more serious oral health problems. Your dentist can perform a common procedure for reversing this tissue loss. Previously, this procedure has required that some tissue be harvested from the roof of your mouth to serve as the grafting material. Unfortunately, you may not have enough tissue available, or you may not want to have tissue taken from this sensitive area.
What Exactly is AlloDerm?
AlloDerm is a dermal matrix that allows your dentist to give you the grafting tissue you need, without the limitations that will come with the harvesting of the grafting material from your mouth. AlloDerm will provide the missing components needed to restore damaged, receding tissue. It promotes fast healing with no second surgical site, and will deliver great aesthetic results. Thousands of dentists have chosen to use this now as their grafting source. AlloDerm is processed from donated human tissue that must pass through the same stringent screening criteria as any other tissue or organ, heart, lungs, kidneys, etc. Even before it goes through the DNA bleaching processing, the donor tissue must also pass rigid guidelines set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
How does AlloDerm work?
AlloDerm provides the collagen, the structure, and the necessary proteins that help your body's own tissue grow and remodel. The collagen serves as a platform into which your cells will grow. The additional proteins act as recruiters, bringing your cells into the graft, and helping them remodel it.
How safe is AlloDerm?
Besides its use in dental procedures, AlloDerm has been used extensively in Burn Reconstruction and Plastic Reconstructive Surgery. In its history of use of now over 9 years and 450,000 procedures, there has not been a single case reported of viral disease transmission from AlloDerm tissue. Tissue donors are screened and tested to eliminate those who might have been exposed to HIV, Hepatitis B and C and any other viral and microbial pathogens. These are important factors to consider when evaluating the safety of AlloDerm tissue.
What happens to the AlloDerm during the healing process?
As your body's natural processes take over, your own cells will move into the AlloDerm. With time, your cells transform the AlloDerm into your own healthy gum tissue. Once your recovery is complete, you will not be able to tell the AlloDerm was ever there.
What are some of the advantages of using AlloDerm for my surgery?
- You do have the freedom of choice: to either use your tissue harvested from another part of your mouth, or to use AlloDerm.
- AlloDerm allows us to focus on just one surgical site. For you this means a far more comfortable healing period.
- AlloDerm does not contain any damaged cells that might lead to inflammation.
What about documented success of AlloDerm?
Multiple clinical studies have documented and proven AlloDerm to be equivalent to your own tissue for the treatment of gum recession. AlloDerm has also demonstrated equivalent or even superior aesthetic results compared to your own tissue. AlloDerm is also commonly used to successfully augment soft tissue around dental implants, protect bone grafts and to cover extraction sockets.