Flapless Implant Surgery | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants

Flapless Implant Surgery | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants: "A volumetric scan is ideal but need not be essential provided you know your anatomy and make full use of whatever low tech but economical techniques that are available like what had been described. In many parts of the world, we may not have the scan and use of it may put it out of reach of almost everyone except the very affluent; not to mention a computer fabricated surgical stent.
As it is many who need implants cannot afford them. Optimal technology suitable for the context especially the economy of the local people should be used together with a large dose of common sense.
Dental implants are the best replacement of lost teeth. As such we should strive to bring its extraordinary life-changing benefits to as many people as possible. Having said that, we should continue to develop more and more accurate means, hightech or otherwise in order to place implants better and faster and more affordably."

Flapless Implant Surgery | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants

Flapless Implant Surgery | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants: "The whole surgical world is moving towards minimal invasive procedures. I believe flapless surgery or transmucosal placement or just making an incision big enough to do the osteotomy is the natural and sensible progression in implant surgery provided no extensive bone grafting is required. Popular rhetoric that it is blind is untrue. It is partially-blind because we have the benefit of models, bone-mapping, Xrays and imaging techniques that give us a pretty good idea of the bone morphology especially when you can eyeball it in vivo albeit covered with a layer of mucosa. Added on to the tactile palpating remote sensing of our supersensitive finger tips, we actually can “see” quite well without flapping and compromising the integrity of surrounding tissues. Flapless unless choiceless is the way to go."

Mini Implants for Long-Term Use? | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants

Mini Implants for Long-Term Use? | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants: "Mini-implants have the advantages of low cost, simple surgical placement and high versatility, have moderate success rates and are easy to insert when anatomic measurements are carefully considered. When failures are noted, retrieving the loosened one and/then inserting another mini-implant has little discomfort and is usually well accepted by patients. A vast majority of clinicians believe that implants not requiring surgical preparation have higher failure rates, while implants with better stability require flap surgeries for insertion and removal. Whereas conventional or modified oral implants have been shown to successfully serve as anchorage for orthodontic appliances, mini-implants failed to reach these high success rates. When the high failure rates of mini-implants are under evaluation two main factors have to be considered. The biomechanical loading of peri-implant bone as well as the time schedule of loading have been shown to have a major impact on the peri-implant bone healing and can be assumed to determine the clinical fate of mini-implants. Therefore, mini-implants can serve as anchorage for orthodontic force systems when loads do not exceed a tolerable strain level. It is important to note that the amount of stresses and strains are dependent on the geometry of the screw as well as on the mechanical properties of the implant and bone. The"

FDA on Mini Implants | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants

FDA on Mini Implants | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants: "A well known one piece small dental dental implant or mini dental implant as some wants to call it is called “self-tapping threaded screws indicated for long-term intra-bony applications. Additionally, they ….. may also be used for inter-radicular transitional applications. These devices will permit immediate splinting stability and long-term fixation of new or existing crown and bridge installations, for full partial edentulism, and employing minimally invasive surgical intervention.”

The quotation is taken clean from the FDA K031106 certification. Note that the term used is “self-tapping titanium threaded screws” and not “implants”. It seems that the FDA has to date decided that any threaded titanium screw that is of diameter 3mm and more is called an implant but anything below that is called a titanium threaded screw. However, its uses appear to be close to, if not equivalent to the uses of conventional implants……….i.e.long-term fixation of new and existing crown and bridge installations. Additional uses are inter-radicular transitional applications, immediate splinting stability, full and partial edentulism…..and using minimally invasive surgical intervention to boot! So the one piece small dental implants, though not labelled as implants seem to be approved to function as implants and is more versatile in"

Mini Implant Systems | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants

Mini Implant Systems | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants: "What is a transitional and what is a provisional and what is an implant and what are their differences? I guess a transitional and a provisional is synonymous and by definition means something temporary until something permanent can be placed. Its probably something like a temporary resin-acrylic bridge until a permanent ceramic bridge is placed.Though nowadays we are seeing more and more composite bridges which last a long time. What do we call them then…..long term use composite bridges? In the mentioned case the transitionals as they grow stronger and more lasting are gradually morphing into permanents! Or should we call them pretenders to the throne? If what Todd says is true, he has at least 2000 fixed crowns and bridges masquerading as permanents for the last 3 to 6 years.Are they now still transitional, longterm, temporary or permanent? Who is the authorised guardian of these terms? Maybe as professionals, we should be wary of being tied down to terms without understanding the rationale behind them. What is important seems to be will it work clinically without compromising basic science and material characteristics. Hope these does not confuse too much but bring about returning regularly to first principles to make sure we are not propagating some standard that was set some time ago and has remained static although the dynamics has changed"

Mini Implant Systems | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants

Mini Implant Systems | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants: "I find the FDA specifications for an implant if true very strange if not arbitrary. Is 3mm a magic figure or what? Why not 2.5mm or 3.5mm or 2.88mm? If that is really their criteria, then on what rationale have they came out with the magic number of at least 3mm diameter before a dental implant is called a dental implant? Would have thought that adequate osseointegration should be the primary criteria and the rest should be merely complementary. Can somebody from the FDA or privy to their line of logic please enlighten. Thank you."

Mini Implant Systems | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants

Mini Implant Systems | OsseoNews Discussions on Dental Implants: "Mini implants are at the same stage of developement that conventional implants were in the 80’s. I have been doing mini’s for 6 years the reason being I realized that conventional implants can only help about 20% of my patient population. Like conventional implants I started slow and went to Victor Sendex’s course where I saw the true potential for these implants. Like with all implants you need to work back from the prosthetics. I have used 3 systems and have found that Intra-Locks MDL(2.0 and 2.5) and Milo(3.0) provide me with the versality to do single units, partial denture retention and the old stand by full denture retention. They are also most useful in the bail out case. Mini implants are the DUCT TAPE of implant dentistry. They have helped me salvage cases that I could have not done any other way and not have the patient declair bankrupcy. Intra-Lock is the only system that has looked beyond denture retention. The prosthetic elements will allow you to do cases that you may have not gotten to due because of the limitations of conventional implant size. Check out my website to see what I mean. Get over it! Mini implants are not just transitional and are here to stay! The secret is knowing the anatomy of where you are using them which I fortunately learned with my conventional implant experience. Like with conventional"