Dental implants are structures, generally screw-retained, which are intended to morphologically replace the root of a tooth.
Depending on the material they are made of, there are two types of dental implants:
- Titanium implants: the mechanical properties of titanium are very favorable and allow us a lot of prosthetic solutions to be able to restore the dental crown. They are the most commonly used, due to their mechanical properties and the possibility of being able to screw the crowns inside the implants.
- Zirconium: they are used in patients with titanium allergy, which is rare, or in patients who do not want to use metal inside their body. In addition, it is also used by holistic dentistry, a branch of the specialty that seeks to treat the patient from a global and integrated way to the rest of the body.
Problems of dental implants
In relation to zirconium dental implants, which have been used much less, the crowns cannot be screwed, but are cemented. Implants are usually single-phase, that is, the root and the crown are in the same body. This leads to many problems when making the prosthesis, since sometimes dental specialists have to carve the implant itself.
Thus, the problem with zirconium implants is that, due to the morphological characteristics of the material, they fracture much more easily. In addition, there is an esthetic risk, since the fact that they are single-phase and rigid limits us a lot depending on the implant locations.
Duration of dental implants
Durability studies of implants without complications give both the same problems and the same duration. But we are also told that the duration time of zirconium implants, which last a long time in the mouth, is significantly less than that of titanium implants.
Zirconium implants are an alternative but the material must be developed much more to be able to be at the same level as titanium dental implants.