The recent interview of Miguel Bosé on 'El Hormiguero', Pablo Motos' TV show, temporarily put dental implants in the spotlight, albeit in a negative way.
On the Antena 3 television programme, the controversial (and understatement) artist claimed that he had lost his voice. because of a dental implant. Specifically, Bosé claimed that it was thanks to a cervical CT scan that a doctor had diagnosed him with sinusitis that "went down his throat, affected his voice, went down to his intestines and the reflux came". He explained the relationship between the implant and the sinusitis by saying that when the implant was inserted, "they drilled the bone and bacteria got in through there".
That is why I am writing this article to discuss whether it is really possible to lose your voice due to a dental implant and to find out about the infections that can occur in an implant and their consequences. On the first point, although I will give more details when we get to the corresponding section, I can tell you in advance that we can state almost categorically that it is not.
Infections and implants
The first thing to do is to differentiate infections by their time of onset: early o lateThe cause can almost certainly be identified on the basis of this.
Early infections
If the infection occurs in the first days after surgeryThe implant is unsalvageable and will have to be repeated after early explantation. Bearing in mind that the scientific literature points to a 2% implant rejection rate, we can imagine how rare this type of infection is, which usually occurs in patients who are heavy smokers or have poorly controlled diabetes.
Late infections
This type of complication is more frequent and is largely due to the patient's hygiene when it comes to maintaining the implant. Because, remember, it is the tissue that supports the implant that becomes infected. The 'problem' with dental implants is that, unlike other titanium prostheses that are inserted into the human body, they are exposed through the crown, which requires specific hygiene guidelines to prevent inflammation, which not all patients comply with.
And that is when the infection appears, which, as with 'basic' periodontal disease, can be divided into two phases: one reversible and one irreversible.
Peri-implant mucositis (reversible)
It would be the counterpart of gingivitis if we talk about periodontal disease. It is a reversible lesion that, like gingivitis, has not affected the bone. In fact, it is estimated that it can affect up to 30% of patients with prostheses. It occurs when the soft tissues surrounding the implant become inflamed and heals as soon as plaque is removed and the implant is kept hygienically clean on a sustained basis.
Peri-implantitis
Peri-implantitis is the irreversible phase of this disease. The bacteria have already caused bone loss around the implant and often the solution, to the resignation of the implantologist and the patient, is to remove the implant and replace it with a new one if possible.
This is mainly because, if bacteria have penetrated the micro-roughnesses of the implant, they are not accessible with any instrument. Therefore, access surgery is performed to clean the implant completely and remove all the bacteria inside the gum.
The damaged area then needs to be reconstructed, sometimes involving bone grafting.
But what about Miguel Bosé?
As you can see, these infections that we have described here have little or nothing to do with the case of Miguel Bosé, but I did not want to miss the opportunity to talk about the infections that are really frequent in dental implants.
As far as the possibility of losing my voice as a result of a dental implant is concerned, since I started studying dentistry until today, when I have successfully placed more than 5,000 implants, I have never heard of anything like this, neither from my own experience, nor from colleagues, nor in the scientific literature that I have consulted for decades.
So, while I do not wish to discredit either Bosé or the doctor who made his diagnosis, it is at the very least unlikely that he would lose his voice by getting a dental implant.