What are dental implants?

Most dental implants are made of titanium, although zirconium models also exist. After the implants are attached to the maxilla or mandible and fuse with the bone they serve as an anchor for the new artificial teeth. The dental implant will be the artificial tooth root to which a crown, or artificial tooth, is attached.

How is the dental implant attached to the bone?

Through a biological process known as osseointegration, discovered by implantology expert Professor Bränemark in the 1950s, the body fuses the surface of the implant directly to the bone.

Can the body reject dental implants?

Most dental implants are made of surgical titanium, a material that has proven to be biocompatible, bio-inert, stable, able to fuse with the bone (osseointegration) and is also well-received by soft tissue.

Implants made with this metal have shown no toxic or irritating reaction on living tissue, thus resulting in a low likelihood of the body having an allergic reaction to or rejecting the implant.

However, complications may arise in the months following implantation should the bone not fuse with the implants; in this case they may have to be removed. These situations, while rare, may be due to surgical site infections, lack of vascularization of the area, changes to the body’s ability to heal (common in smokers), stress or functional overload in supporting a prosthesis. We have performed over 1,000 implantations at our dental clinic, with only extremely rare cases of complications.