The treatment with dental implants in edentulous patients or with advanced periodontal disease and with great maxillary atrophy (bone loss or little bone), which allows the placement of a fixed prosthesis, remains a challenge for the surgeon. Complete removable prostheses are poorly tolerated by patients because of their mobility, discomfort when speaking, laughing, let alone eating; all of which affects self-esteem, health, esthetics and masticatory function.
To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to place dental implants that firmly hold these prostheses. But there are serious limitations to this: a scarce and insufficient amount of jawbone, large maxillary sinuses and the proximity of the nostrils. This contributes to the fact that dental implants cannot be placed conventionally. Two techniques are available to treat these complex cases: bone grafts with large maxillary reconstructions and zygomatic implants.
What are zygomatic implants?
Zygomatic implants are an alternative for those patients who have lost all their teeth or their implants and bone in the upper jaw.
They are longer implants, which are placed from the maxillary bone to the zygomatic or malar bone, and can be combined with conventional implants in the most anterior part if there is bone at that level or if there is not enough bone in the entire maxilla, placing 2 zygomatic implants on each side, a technique called Quadzygoma or quadruple zygoma, that is, the use of 4 zygomatic implants to rehabilitate the entire upper jaw and thus replace all the teeth in a fixed way.
What does the zygomatic implant surgery consist of?
The placement of zygomatic implants is a procedure that can be performed under intravenous sedation or general anesthesia. It is an outpatient surgery that does not require hospitalization. With this technique, the placement of a provisional fixed prosthesis is possible within 24-48 hours of surgery (immediate loading or function). In this way a fixed and immediate rehabilitation is achieved in the maxilla that will allow an adequate mastication, an aesthetic improvement and, above all, an improvement in the quality of life.
The studies carried out (with success rates between 94 and 100%) show that zygomatic implants are a very good alternative for implant-supported rehabilitation without grafts in patients with resorbed jaws or with previous loss of implants. It is a predictable procedure with a low complication rate.