Dental implant components

Transfer

Transfer is an element used in indirect technique work, which serves to transfer the position and design of the implant or pillar to a model, which will be worked on by the dental technician in a laboratory.

Analog

This involves making an exact copy of the body or the pillar implant, which joins the transfer once it had been made from the impression taken of the patient's mouth. It allows the technician to obtain a master model to work with the indirect technique for the manufacture of an implantable prosthesis. The laboratory technician or dental technician begins to create the replacement tooth.

The dental implant is the artificial replacement of the root of a tooth lost. Implants are usually of a threaded form and are made of biocompatible materials that do not produce reaction or rejection and allow their union to the bone. The surface of the implant can present different textures and coatings that are commonly used to increase their adherence to bone. Adherence is accomplished through osseointegration if the implant is made of titanium and through biointegration if it is of a ceramic material.

With its placement, because the alveoli contain an element that simulates the root of the tooth, much alveolar bone is kept, and therefore maintains a degree in the vertical dimension of the mouth.

Clinical research has led to a new type of implant called transzygomatic, which allows for maximization of bone. These implants are in the cheekbone area (zygomatic bone), whose volume is not affected by tooth loss, as usually happens with a jawbone that may atrophy. This technique allows treating bone in those with little mouths without using more aggressive practices and worse prognoses such as bone grafts.

Screw covering

After the surgical implant is inserted into the body of the bone during Stage 1, a cover is placed on the crest module in order to prevent the growth of tissue inside the thread that holds that module or upper portion.

Pillar healing

Having produced osseointegration, surgical Stage 2 follows, which is unscrewing and removing the screw and cover wraps. It is the mainstay of healing, whose function is to prolong the body of the implant on soft tissue, and allow the union of the mucous gum to form on the crest, thus giving rise to sealing gum.

Pillar

The pillar is the portion of the implant that holds the prosthesis. (The pillars are where soldiers lashed prostheses.) According to the method by which to hold the prosthetic implant, we distinguish three pillars:

Screw pillar, in which a screw is used to affix the prosthesis.
Cemented pillar, in which the prosthesis joins the pillar through dental cements, behaving like a stump that is attached to a crown, a bridge or over-dentures.
Retainer pillar consists of a system that supports a removable prosthesis; thus the patient may affix and remove manually.

Types of implants

Implants are separated into two types according to their location in relation to the bone.

The first type are subperiosteal or juxtaosseous implants. They consist of devices in the form of a saddle that are placed on the crest bone between the periosteum and alveolar bone. It also is where some pillars anchor the prosthesis. This type is used little, typically in cases with a large amount of jawbone resorption.

The second types of implants are endosseous implants. These implants are introduced into the alveolar bone, and are distinguished by the method of displacement.

Friction

When using friction, implants are threaded from the surface. A layer of hydroxyapatite (retention chemistry) does not normally cover them, and some models have perforations so that the bone is developed in its interior setting (mechanical restraint). Friction implants are not widely used because is very slow process.

Threaded

Threaded implants look like a screw with a screw on its surface, thus providing increased surface contact with the bone implant.

Perforated plates

These are titanium plates with holes that allow the growth of bone across them. They are prescribed for patients whose width of the alveolar bone is very little and thus not appropriate for a cylindrical implant.

Materials used for dental implants

Titanium

It is the most commonly used for implants because of its high chemical stability and good biocompatibility properties. Mechanically, its hardness withstands the high occlusal loads produced during chewing, and its elastic modulus is very similar to bone. Implants can be made of pure titanium or titanium alloy with aluminum and / or vanadium. This material allows osseointegration of the implant as long as its surface is not smooth.

Ceramics

The most widely used is hydroxyapatite, which is used to cover the surface of titanium implants. Implants can also be fabricated with ceramic materials, such as those made exclusively with aluminum oxide monocrystalline. These materials allow a faster and stronger integration than that produced with titanium, as the union is not mechanical but supposedly chemical (something not yet scientifically contrasted), giving rise to biointegration.