Ferdinand Mabula Machibya, Yiyuan Zhuang and Jiang Chen
Bone regeneration practice has evolved significantly by introduction of new diverse type of regeneration materials. Thus, practitioners’ comprehensive knowledge of regenerative material properties is one of the requirement for optimum clinical outcome. The aim of this review was to retrieve and analyze articles comparing the histological and radiological features of different grafting materials used in dentistry. The search for English articles published between January 1990 and June 2016 was done through Embase, PubMed and Scopus database to identify articles comparing histological and radiological features of different grafting materials used in dentistry for compilation and qualitative analysis. Most of the articles retrieved had low level of evidence with methodological heterogeneity. With the limits of this review, the qualitative analysis of the selected papers draws the following conclusions: Most of the materials investigated showed satisfactory bone regeneration capability. When properly prepared ABG is the best grafting material in terms of new bone formation, local tissue reaction and rate of material resorption. There is limited evidence that some synthetic BRMs have similar to or even better osteoconductive properties than autograft. Calcium phosphate cement (CPC) has restricted osteoconductivity capability.