Role of Dental Implants

Dental implants have significantly expanded our capabilities to replace missing teeth, and now allow us to avoid removable tooth replacements in many circumstances. Additionally, dental implants can provide us with the capability of replacing missing teeth without having to involve adjacent sound, natural teeth. You can think of a dental implant as an artificial root. With “roots” now replacing missing teeth, we can build on these implants to construct crowns and fixed bridges.

Unlike fixed bridges, individual missing teeth can be replaced with a single implant while leaving adjacent healthy teeth alone.

Implants can also be used as primary or additional support for non-removable bridges when traditional therapy required a removable partial denture.

There are too many possible treatment approaches to list, and each reconstruction needs to be individually planned.

Reconstruction with Dental Implants

Planning reconstructive care with dental implants requires careful coordination between the surgical phase and reconstructive phase. It is vital to fastideously plan the entire treatment and prosthesis prior to implant placement surgery. This reduces unexpected surgical and anatomical complications and ensures the best possible outcome.

• Diagnosis: Dental x-rays, panoramic x-rays, diagnostic models, and CT scans are commonly performed. This enables full planning of both the surgical and reconstructive phases of treatment.
• Implant placement: The surgical procedure to place the implants in the jaw is generally performed with a conventional local anaesthetic. Sedation can be arranged if you are very nervous. While in the past many types of implant remained completely covered by gum tissue during the healing phase, this is now less usual and the implant is allowed to heal with a 'healing cap' attached to its head. This cap prevents the gum from growing over. The healing phase is now usually less than three months.
• Implant evaluation: After the appropriate healing time, the implants are checked and evaluated for stability.
• Reconstruction: It is now time to build the final tooth structure on top of the implant(s). This can be an individual crown or a bridge of some type, thus replacing one or more teeth.