Replacement materials for facial reconstruction at the soft tissue–bone interface

The challenges faced by any tissue repair and regeneration process resulting from either trauma or disease are many and complex. Although it is of course impossible to identify any one anatomical region as being the most demanding in this respect, the craniofacial region surely qualifies. The judicious choice of available, well-defined and tested repair materials to be used in the reconstruction process by the multi-disciplinary team of reconstructive surgeons is critical. This chapter addresses one aspect of facial reconstruction that has been less well addressed in the literature; namely the materials used to repair and regenerate soft tissue both in terms of fillers and in terms of materials used at the hard-soft tissue interface.