Dental Implants can have many applications. Most of the time, it can restore one single missing tooth. In some cases, it can be used to restore multiple missing teeth. Depending on the patient’s bone structure and patient’s occlusion, multiple implants can be used to restore multiple teeth (one implant for each missing tooth) or an implant bridge can be used to restore multiple missing teeth.
Whenever it is possible, it is ideal to place multiple implants to restore each single missing teeth. For example, if a patient has three missing teeth, it is ideal to use three implant to restore all three missing teeth. This option depends on the patient’s bone morphology and also increase the complexity of the surgery because greater care has to be given during surgery to make sure each implant to be placed in perfect alignment to each other and also in compatible to the patient’s bone morphology.
Another method is to create an implant bridge. After the implant is placed and has been integrated with the jaw bone for several months, we will take an impression and have the lab create the implant abutment for each implant. Then we secure the implant abutment on top of the implant fixture within the jaw bone. This is how the implant abutments are oriented in the mouth after it has been secured in the mouth:
Notice that the patient has three missing teeth and only two implant abutments. The advantage of the implant bridge is that it allows restoration multiple teeth with less implants, thereby lessening the complexity of the implant surgery. After the metal implant abutments are secured, we can then take another impression of the implant abutments and then an implant bridge can be made.
Implant bridge is to be cemented on top of the implant abutments. This is how it looks like in the mouth:
Then this is the Xray image taken after the bridge is cemented:
The comments that I get from my patient is that the implant bridge feels and functions just like her natural teeth. She comes in for routine hygiene visit and she is doing just fine.
