Bone substitutes and infection in maxillofacial surgery

: Bony substitutes are in fashion in maxillofacial surgery. They are used to fill bony cavities, in bony reconstruction to give shape-lines and re-create area of support or to fill bony defects. Then their use is frequently crowned by success in general surgery, it is not the same thing in maxillofacial surgery because of the usual impossibility to fulfil a requirement to biomaterial utilisation: the watertight. Furthermore, they don't have yet, for the most part, an essential quality: malleability. In our experience, their use are frequently disappointing because of postoperative infections and we stay faithful to the autograft bone. However it is highly probable that these biomaterials will take an importance more and more considerable when these problems will be overcame.