Cosmetic dentistry Guide

Technological advances now allow surgeons to find the right angle to place the implant in the jaw. The specialist can now use a surgical guide designed by computer to guide the drilling of the bone and make the implant placement more accurate.

“During the implants, surgical navigation allows the practitioner to follow live on a computer screen the exact position of its tools in the patient’s jaw,” says Dr. Philippe Khayat practitioner in Paris. This technology, derived from general surgery, adds new tools now available to dentists to improve the placement of implants and reduce the impact of the intervention in limiting the incisions on the gum. Advances in imaging, coupled to the computer processing of images, allow surgeons to prepare the installation upstream and better target their actions.

New opportunities are offered to practitioners who are educated implantology and acquired little by little these devices, despite their cost to meet the changing current practices. “The placement of dental implants is becoming commonplace, especially when the surrounding teeth are healthy and want to avoid cutting them to be a bridge,” said Dr. Stephen Daniel, service dentistry parontologie the Hotel-Dieu in Paris.

A dental implant is in fact a screw, usually made of titanium placed in a hole in the jawbone and which is fixed, after a variable period, a false tooth. The jawbone is indeed able to recover around the implant, which then becomes truly an artificial root for prosthetics, withstanding all efforts related to chewing for many years. “The discovery of osseointegration has been a revolution: it can completely replace a tooth or a tooth and restore patients’ ability to chew, smile, talk normally,” said Dr. Hadi Antoun, practicing in Paris.

The main difficulty is to find the ideal angle to place the implant, and thus the prosthesis, in harmony with the rest of the dentition. With experience, surgeons frequently these interventions, properly position the implant of hands but when the dentist has less experience, or under certain conditions, it can now use a surgical guide designed by computer to guide the drilling of bone. The scanner, coupled to a computer, makes it possible to obtain a 3D image of the jaw of each patient.

Less waiting

A new X-ray machine, using a conical beam of rays, a team many dental offices now: it improves patient safety because it reduces the amount of radiation needed to form a complete picture of the jaw. With radiopaque markers placed on a gutter, it is possible to simulate the future location of the implants. We can then verify that they are well placed and make a surgical guide that will guide the surgeon’s drill. “Many surgeons are reserved on these approaches, however, because the images may lack precision, particularly when the mouth already contains metal, which is quite common. With an image even slightly inaccurate, the surgical guide is not perfect and the position of the implant is not always satisfactory, “laments Dr. Philippe Khayat. “The experience of the surgeon who can then correct any discrepancies.”

The reduction of postoperative and reliability of the poses that these new tools provide, however, seem promising, especially for dentists who specialize in implant dentistry. Associated with the development of new implants which integrate more quickly into the bone, new technologies have reduced the waiting time between implant placement and fixation of the definitive prosthesis, which rose from 6 at 12 weeks instead of 4 to 6 months.

“The arrival of the implants and progress in their poses, completely redefining the principle that new teeth must be carried by neighboring elements and including teeth that mutilates this purpose,” says Professor Paul Mariani , Faculty of Dentistry of Marseille. A revolution that Medicare has not yet taken into account since it partially reimburses the bridge but not implants.

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