Oral Surgery
Explained

Implantology

Dental implants are substitute tooth roots. This procedure replaces damaged or missing teeth with artificial teeth that look and function much like real ones.

Advantages of implants:

1. Regenerated smiles. Dental implants look and feel like natural teeth. Because they are designed to fuse with the jawbone, they become permanent.
2. Improved speech. Removable dentures may slip in the mouth, making it difficult to articulate words.
3. Better chewing. Dental implants function like your own teeth, allowing you to consume your favorite foods without pain and processing them more effectively.
4. Enhanced self-esteem. Dental implants can restore your smile and help you feel better about yourself.
5. Improved oral health. Dental implants do not require the reduction of other teeth, as a bridge supported by teeth does. Since adjacent teeth are not altered to support the implant, most of your teeth remain untouched, improving long-term oral health.
6. Stability. Implants are highly stable and generally have a long lifespan. With proper care, implants can last a lifetime.
7. Convenience. Removable dentures are just that; removable. Dental implants eliminate the awkwardness of removing dentures and the need for periodic adhesive application to keep them in place.

Dental Prosthetics

Dental prosthetics are used to replace natural teeth and improve dental aesthetics. There are two types of dental prosthetics:

A) Fixed Prosthetics: Fixed prosthetics are attached to abutment teeth through cementation and cannot be removed by the patient. Fixed prosthetics include:

1. 1. Crowns (which can be metal-porcelain, zirconia-porcelain, palladium-porcelain, or fluor-porcelain). Crowns are prosthetics for individual teeth, where the root is preserved. They are anchored to prepared teeth (abutments) or through endodontic posts in the root (Richmond Crowns).
   2. Bridges (similar to crowns, can be made of metal-porcelain, zirconia-porcelain, palladium-porcelain, or fluor-porcelain). In bridges, a missing tooth is replaced by a prosthesis containing the extracted tooth and the adjacent teeth, which are reduced to abutments that support the prosthesis. The missing tooth, along with the abutment teeth, forms the bridge.
   3. Implant-supported prosthesis: In this case, the missing tooth’s root is replaced with a titanium or biocompatible alloy implant, and a fixed prosthesis is attached or cemented onto it.

B) Removable Prosthetics: The term “removable prosthesis” refers to all prosthetics that can replace an entire arch or a part of it. They are called removable because they can be easily removed and cleaned by the patient. Removable prosthetics are divided into:

1. 1. Complete dentures: Placed when a patient has no teeth in the oral cavity. It consists of an acrylic resin support structure and resin teeth, held against the patient’s palate. This prosthesis respects the patient’s profile and chewing functions. It is called complete and removable because it can be taken out and cleaned by the patient at any time during the day. To wear this type of prosthesis, the patient needs to have a sufficient amount of bone to support it naturally.
   2. Partial dentures: Anchored to the remaining teeth with metal clasps. It consists of an acrylic resin support structure and resin teeth.
   3. Skeletal denture: A partial denture with a metal support structure.
   4. Skeletal denture with attachment: A mixed prosthesis consisting of pillar-like elements (teeth) placed in crowns, a skeletal denture with metal clasps, making this type of prosthesis stable and allowing the patient to remove and replace it at any time during the day.
   5. Cast metal denture base: A metal framework prepared in the laboratory and placed on the tooth roots. This type of base provides more stability to the tooth when it consists only of the root.