A look at Ceramic Dental Implants at Swiss Biologic Dentistry (1 of 3)

We are going to take a look today at one of the core procedures we do at Swiss Biologic Dentistry: Placing Ceramic Dental Implants. I think that at this point, everyone has heard of dental implants. Even in ancient times, people were putting things in place of missing teeth. But, it wasn’t till the 1950s, when Per-Ingvar Brånemark discovered that titanium would bond with a patient’s bone, thus allowing the implant to integrate into the jaw.

How the Implant is attached?

Through a process called osseointegration, the titanium and bone are essentially fused together which is a prerequisite for being able to chew on the implant (once restored). There is nothing holding an implant in place other than its fusion with the bone.

You’ll notice that all implants have threads on them. The reasons are two-fold: first, it allows the implant to be screwed into the placement hole to hold it in place; second, the threads allow for the bone grown to hold onto more surface area of the implant to improve stability.

The implant will essentially kill off the bone that held it in place, but will replace that bone with new bone. It is a process that takes months, but the implant would most likely fail without the additional bone growing in place.

Titanium Implants vs. Ceramic Dental Implants

While most people are not entirely intolerant of titanium, a lot of people have allergic reactions to it once placed in the mouth. So much so, that most titanium implants are actually coated with the same material that a ceramic implant is entirely made out of. That coating is either titanium oxide or zirconia oxide, with the latter being more biocompatible which allows for better osseointegration.

So why not just place ceramic implants? Ceramic implants have only been commercially available in the United States since the 2000s (the 80s in Europe) and there were a few design flaws in them. While titanium is a metal, and maybe you don’t want metal in your mouth, the implant was incredibly solid and was nearly impossible to break. Not so for early ceramic dental implants. These implants were made with materials that made them prone to fracture. Plus, early ceramic implants were one-piece implants, meaning that the large post that your crown will sit on was sticking out from the gumline substantially. This design issue was problematic for a few reasons. The first being that it is hard not to hit that post during the minimum six-month integration period. Every time you hit it, it jostles it loose a bit. Do that too much, and you’re looking at a failure to integrate. The other issue was that the post was prone to snap off after the implant was fully restored.

These problems related to the nature and structure of the ceramic material itself. The old types of ceramics used here do not have great shear force resistance nor did they have great compression strength either.

Ceramic Dental Implants Have Improved Greatly

Newer ceramic dental implants use a number of exotic ceramic recipes to provide considerably more sheer and compression strength. And, offices like ours do not use one-piece implants anymore either. You can now get a two-piece system so that during the critical osseointegration period, there is no giant post protruding from your gums. There is s till a small post, but you won’t hit it nor push against nearly as much.

Another issue with titanium implants is the color and gum recession. Titanium does not play as nice with your gums as ceramics do. That can cause your gums to recede and expose the dark titanium implant. It shows up like a dark grey mark at the base of the crown. This is especially disconcerting for front (anterior) restorations.

So modern ceramic implants last as long and look better over time. Also, they are more biocompatible with your body. For Swiss Biologic, the choice is abundantly clear, ceramic implants are the only choice