The difference in today’s dental implants, among many other factors, lies in the connection between the implant and the prosthesis it will carry. There are external connection implants, less and less used, and internal connection implants, the most used nowadays. Within these, there is a wide range: hexagonal connection, conical, combined, and each one has its advantages and disadvantages depending on the case to rehabilitate and the patient.
Another fundamental difference lies in the brand of the implants and, therefore, in their quality. We use one of the three best, worldwide, Bio Horizons. The advantage is the safety it gives you when working on them, the treatment that the implant surface has, the guarantee that these implants give you, since, if they give you problems at any time, the brand supports you and the implant is reimbursed so that the patient does not have to suffer another expense again.
How does computer-guided surgery work?
It is an accurate diagnosis of the intervention to be performed. It is established by means of a 3D image, which will indicate both the width and height of the bone we have in order to perfectly position the implant to be placed, both in the bone and taking into account the future emergence of the prosthesis.
Guided surgery allows you to anticipate any problems that may arise, because you can see how the tooth will look once the implants have been placed. It also completely minimizes human error, because if you make a good diagnosis, the position is exact with respect to what you have diagnosed. It is an absolute safety for the patient and for the implant specialist who performs it.
After placing the implants, should I take any special precautions?
Postoperative care depends on the type of prosthesis. It is not the same a single implant in a posterior sector, where the care will be hygiene and medication, than several implants placed to replace a complete arch. In this case other factors intervene, such as taking care of food, brushing, not forcing the prosthesis if it is provisional….
Hygiene is fundamental and not to load the implant, that is to say, not to use it to “bite” during the time the integration lasts. It depends on whether it is for the upper or lower sector, it will take some time to be perfectly apt to receive the chewing load.
What maintenance do implants require?
Basically it is like a natural tooth, hygiene and good work on the part of the patient, and avoiding bad habits, such as smoking, which is not good for the implants or for the teeth. We should try to lead a normal life, since in the end it does not stop being just another “tooth” once it is in place. Maintenance should be carried out from time to time, if we see that the patient is not able to brush himself we can help him with occasional cleaning to avoid peri-implantitis. The latter is the main problem of maintenance, that if the patient does not brush well, dirt can get into the implant area and cause bone loss.
If this were to happen, peri-implant and regenerative treatments would be necessary to heal this situation.
What are the most recent advances in implantology?
Advances in implantology lie, as we have mentioned above, in computer-guided surgery, which is increasingly performed in more cases and there are more means to facilitate the placement of implants.
Another very important advance is immediate loading implants. In other words, the implants can be extracted and placed during the same operation. With this, many advantages are obtained, such as bleeding, which favors the insertion and integration of the implant, the fact that the patient only undergoes one surgical procedure and, finally, the ability to model the tissues so that once the definitive prosthesis is placed, the implant environment is as natural as possible, which favors both the esthetics and the function of the implant.
This is a somewhat more complicated intervention, the specialist must have experience to take advantage of the remaining bone after the operation. However, once it is done satisfactorily and you are merely knowledgeable about the anatomy of the bone, you perform the extractions cleanly and carefully, and you have a good diagnosis based on CT or X-ray, you get magnificent results.
In esthetic cases, if a patient is going to lose an upper central piece, the person and the specialist do not want, nor can they afford, to be without a tooth for the least amount of time. For this reason, you are forced to perform the implant at the same time as the extraction (immediate load implants) and even place a temporary tooth to make it aesthetically acceptable.
Digital dentistry and immediate loading are the present of implant surgery and with which better results are achieved from the functional and aesthetic point of view.