Dental Implants, Dentures, and Crowns

WHAT IS A DENTAL IMPLANT?

A dental implant is an artificial tooth root that is placed into your jaw to hold a replacement tooth or bridge. Dental implants may be an option for people who have lost teeth due to periodontal disease, an injury or some other reason.

Dental implants are typically made of titanium, a biocompatible material that is accepted by the body and serves as a strong and sturdy foundation for replacement teeth. Your natural bone locks the implant into place by fusing, or attaching itself, to the implant.

If you are considering implants, you must have healthy gums and adequate bone to support the implant. If your bone is too thin or soft and unable to support an implant, you may require a bone graft. Or if there is not enough bone height in the upper posterior jaw, where the sinuses are, you may require a sinus lift.

Dentures and bridges mounted to implants will not slip or shift in your mouth, an especially important benefit when eating and speaking. This secure fit helps dentures and bridges, as well as individual crowns placed over implants, feel more natural than conventional bridges or dentures.

For some people, ordinary bridges and dentures are simply not comfortable or even possible due to sore spots, poor ridges or gagging. In addition, an ordinary bridge must be attached to teeth on either side of the space left by the missing tooth. An advantage of implants is that no adjacent teeth need to be prepared or ground down to hold your new replacement tooth in place.

PRF (PLATELET-RICH FIBRIN)

One of the latest innovations in oral surgery is the use of platelet concentrates for in vivo tissue engineering applications — platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) is one of these concentrates. Platelet concentrates are a concentrated suspension of growth factors found in platelets, which act as bioactive surgical additives that are applied locally to induce wound healing. In surgical procedures, PRF could serve as a resorbable membrane for guided bone regeneration. PRF membrane helps in wound healing, protecting the surgical site and promoting soft tissue repair. When mixed with a bone graft, it may act as a “biological connector,” which attracts stem cells, favors the migration of osteoprogenitor cells to the center of the graft and provides a neo-angiogenesis.