One of the benefits of dental implants is their high durability. We know that dental implants have been shown to be very long-lasting in many studies. Once placed and successfully integrated, dental implants are expected to last decades.
However, sometimes people raise concerns. For example, inspection of dental implants recently showed the presence of tiny flaws in the implants, which, it was feared, might lead dental implants to fracture. Now a new study calms this concern and shows that dental implants have a very very low risk of fracture. And working with a skilled implant dentist like Dr. Mike Firouzian can reduce it even more.
Fractures Are One-in-a-Thousand Events
This new study is a retrospective review of dental implants placed at two implant centers in Iran. These two implant centers placed a total of 18,700 implants that were included in the study. Of these implants, only 37 had fractures. That’s just 0.2% of implants that fractured, or 2 in 1000. Researchers calculated the one-year fracture risk was 0.38 per 1000, while the 5-year fracture rate was about 1.46 per 1000.
This shows that concerns about microstructural flaws in dental implants are unjustified. Dental implants remain a highly durable restoration.
Which Implants Are More Likely to Fracture?
Researchers also used information about the nature of the implants to calculate the risks that made some dental implants more likely to fracture than others. They found that about 95% of dental implant fractures occurred in the molar area, where bite forces are strongest.
The other strong correlation was related to screw-retained implant crowns. According to their data, these researchers said that screw-retained crowns made an implant nearly 300 times more likely to fracture.
Neuromuscular Dentistry Can Protect Your Implants
Although the risk of dental implant fracture is small, we’d like to get it as close as possible to zero. The results of this study shows that it’s primarily excessive bite force that contributes to the risk of implant fracture. Neuromuscular dentistry can help protect your implants from fracture.
Physiologic Dentistry looks at your teeth, jaws, muscles, and tendons as parts of a unified system that creates your bite. It allows us to balance the forces in your bite. When we do this, we can make sure that your dental implant isn’t taking too much force when you bite and chew. That helps us control the risk of dental implant fracture.
If you are looking for a Columbus, OH implant dentist trained in neuromuscular dentistry, please call (614) 848-5001 today for an appointment with Dr. Mike Firouzian at Firouzian Dentistry.
