Horikawa FK. Bone repair in rabbit mandible after intra-oral vertical osteotomy: Histomorphometric and tomographic analysis [thesis]. São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Odontologia; 2017. Versão Corrigida. Mandibular osteotomy is a well-established intervention for the treatment of prognathism and other conditions requiring mandibular repositioning. The most commonly used osteotomy techniques are intraoral vertical ramus osteotomy (IVRO) and sagittal split ramus osteotomy (SSRO), each of which has particular indications and limitations. Although IVRO is considered effective owing to observations of clinical success and imaging analyses, there are no studies describing the bone repair processes that follow IVRO because, in this technique, the mandibular bone is overlaid at a cortical-cortical contact site. The purpose of this study was to evaluate cortical-cortical bone repair in rabbit mandibles following IVRO. After approval of the Ethics and Research Committee on Animals of the Faculty of Dentistry of the University of São Paulo (Protocol: 014/2014), 12 rabbits, divided into four groups of three, were used. The four groups, G1, G2, G3, and G4, were euthanized 15 days, 30 days, 45 days, and 56 days post-IVRO; the animals in G4 were also infused with fluorochemical markers. All 12 animals were submitted to a bilateral inverted "L" osteotomy at the mandibular angle. On one side, the released bone fragment was advanced anteriorly and fixed with a screw onto the anterior mandibular basal bone; on the other side, only the osteotomy was performed to serve as a within-animal control site. After the operations, the animals were kept in a standard room until they were euthanized at the group-designated time points. Upon euthanasia, the mandibles were dissected, imaged digitally by conical beam tomography, and analyzed under fluorescence microscopy. The tomographic analysis results revealed a correlation between density values in the operated IVRO sites of bone overlap and the contralateral osteotomy-only surgical control sites. Fluorescence microscopy analysis revealed the presence of elevated alizarin marker (above calcein levels) in the neoformed bone, both in the operated side and in the osteotomy-only control side. Bone growth was greater at the 15-day and 30-day time points than at the later time points. In conclusion, bone consolidation occurred at cortical-cortical overlap sites, tomographic densities were similar between bone overlapping and nonoverlapping (control) sides, bone formation was maximal during the first month of repair.