Abstract

This technical note describes an innovation that addresses a clinical problem in iatrogenic inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) repair. The options for IAN exposure (Miloro, 1995) are less than ideal since they offer limited access and visibility and/or the exposure itself has a risk of inducing iatrogenic IAN injury. This technical note offers the option to perform IAN exposure via a unilateral sagittal split osteotomy (SSO). There are inherent risks of mild transient IAN paresthesia, malocclusion, bad splits, and the additional cost of rigid fixation hardware (Peleg et al., 2021). The significance of this technique is that it permits wide access for IAN reconstruction in cases where the IAN injury is in the posterior mandible (eg. due to mandibular third molar removal) where another option for access is limited. This technique will improve patient care by facilitating IAN exposure and repair. There should be no challenges or delays to implementing this innovation for surgeons who perform orthognathic surgery and nerve repair.

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