Vestibuloplasty to enhance denture stability: About two observations

Abstract

Vestibuloplasty is a surgery which allows the deepening of the vestibule and the increase of the keratinized gingiva. It may turn out to be essential when a rehabilitation of an edentulous patient with a removable denture is going to be done on an alveolar ridge with a poor height, compromising the optimal retention and stability of the denture. There are a variety of operative techniques used to achieve these goals, and each of them has her advantages and her disadvantages. We report two cases of vestibuloplasty performed in order to rehabilitate edentulous patients with a removable denture where a reduced vestibular depth was secondary to maxillofacial trauma. The operative technique used was a simple fenestration of the vestibular soft tissues, with an immediate removable denture placement to guide the wound healing which was of secondary intention. In both cases, there was an increase of vestibule depth after the complete healing of the soft tissues, improving the stability of the denture. The operative technique was relatively simple, easy and reproducible, allowing its application without any particular skills.

Keywords

• Vestibuloplasty
• Deepening
• Fenestration
• Alveolar ridge