By Dr. Fernando García Vélez, specialist in dental implantology at the Vélez & Lozano dental clinic.
Although we have addressed this issue in another previous post, is a topic I love and want to share some more information with you.
When we can no longer keep a tooth in our mouths, we have the possibility of extracting it, and placing an implant at the same time, this technique is called Immediate Implant. This technique is our first choice in our daily practice, although there are some exceptions that do not always allow us to do it.
The alternative would be the classic technique or Deferred Implantation, which consists of doing the removal and wait 3 months for the bone to heal before placement. Comparing the success rate of the two, it is slightly better deferred technique (98%) versus the immediate technique (94%)
And is an immediate implant worthwhile?
Absolutely yes. The immediate technique has many advantages:
- Much shorter treatment times.
- Fewer interventions.
- Reduction of bone loss by simultaneously using a bone volume preservation technique.
In contrast, with the immediate technique we have only the drawback that in some cases the implant is not integrated, This is what we see in the first month of healing, without this being detrimental to the healing of the tissues.
As we said, the classic technique requires a 3-month waiting period, So if an immediate implant fails, we remove it, clean it well, and wait the remaining 2 months to replace the implant with the classic technique.
Whenever we extract a tooth, the surrounding gum and bone are lost over time. When we place an immediate implant, we simultaneously carry out a series of regeneration techniques, which help us to maintain and enhance these tissues around the implant.
One of these techniques is called alveolar preservation and consists of filling the space that is left empty and is not occupied by the implant where the root of the tooth used to be, and serves to maintain the bone. We can also gain more gum with other types of grafts, although this can be done a posteriori without any inconvenience, if we need more volume.
