Mental Nerve Function After Inferior Alveolar Nerve Transposition for Placement of Dental Implants

Background: One option for successful placement of dental implants in an atrophic posterior mandible without injury to the inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) is to transpose or lateralize the nerve. This procedure carries the risk of numbness along the distribution of the nerve, the complication that the procedure is undertaken to avoid in the first place. The purpose of the present study was to assess mental nerve function after transposition of the IAN.