Microcomputed Tomography Analysis of Maxillary Bone Density

The harvested maxillae were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde at 4°C overnight and stored in a 70% ethanol solution. The fixed maxillae were scanned by a microcomputed tomography scanner (microCT35; Scanco Medical AG, Bassersdorf, Switzerland) with a 14 µm voxel size. Two-dimensional slices from each maxilla were combined using microCT v6.1 software (Scanco Medical) to form a three-dimensional reconstruction. Reconstructions were further analysed as previously described^{18 (link)}. The region of interest (ROI) was defined to cover the whole tooth extraction socket. The bone mean density (BMD) of each extraction site was measured semi-automatically in accordance with the guidelines for the assessment of bone microstructures using microCT^{37 (link)}.