When I placed my first dental implant thirty-five years ago as a dental resident at Polyclinic Medical School and Hospital in New York City, it was considered experimental. Today, dental implants are considered so routine in a dental practice that the failure to offer dental implants when discussing the replacement of missing teeth is now considered grounds for malpractice.

Dental implants, depending upon the study, show a 96% success rate in ten years, whereas conventional fixed bridgework has a success rate of approximately 86%. Dental implants can be used in a variety of situations, from the replacement of a single tooth, or multiple teeth, to the replacement of all of a patient’s missing teeth.

With today’s advanced digital technologies, we can even make a patient teeth in one day. Patients can come into a dental office with no teeth in their mouths, and walk out with implants and teeth. This requires significant advanced planning and design, but it shows the extreme to which we have advanced with dental implants.

Most standard dental implants are placed by one of the oral surgeons with whom we work, and a temporary is placed in the patient’s mouth. While we wait for the implant to integrate into the patient’s bone, the temporary may be attached to the implant, or to the adjoining teeth, depending upon the situation.

A word of caution: as with any useful tool that men have developed, it is the knowledge of knowing when and how to use that tool that determines the successful integration of the technology into the art and science of replacing teeth. Again, as with any other tool, the dentist must fully communicate the advantages and disadvantages of using implants, versus alternative methods, to determine what is really in the patient’s best interest.

We pride ourselves in helping people understand the process of dental implants, so that when all is said and done, they will know they have made the right decision for themselves.