What are Dental Implants ?

Dental implants are artificial teeth that are placed into your jaw bones. Some time ago, the idea that missing teeth could be replaced by artificial implants probably belonged to the realm of science fiction. Perhaps some of us will remember our elders telling us to take care of our teeth because once lost, they cannot be replaced. Certainly, the age of ‘cybernetic’ implants which can be incorporated into the human body to function as replacements of lost, diseased body parts or organs is still a long way into the future. So what makes teeth different and why is dental implant placement such a reliable and widely accepted treatment practiced all over the world today?

Such treatment has been made possible by the discovery that living bone forms a direct contact with implanted titanium or its alloys. This process is called ‘osseo (bone)- integration’, and is characterized by the rigid fixation of such implants to our jaw bones after a period of healing. Since teeth can be considered to be externalized extensions of our jaw bones and do not need to be able to move independently nor serve any biochemical functions besides being strong enough for us to chew food and beautiful enough for us to have a nice smile, it has become entirely possible for such artificial tooth implants to predictably replace our natural teeth that had to be removed due to dental disease or trauma.

The field of dental implants has been established for more than a decade at least and is continually progressing. It now provide us with well researched data that gives strong evidence for the possibility of having long lasting replacement teeth if you take care of them and have them regularly checked and maintained, like you would do for natural teeth.

Written by: Dr Debbie Hong