What is osseointegration
Osseointegration is the concept on which implantology, the branch of dentistry that deals with the placement of dental implants, is based.
Dental implants are artificial roots implanted in the bone, which serve as a support for fixed prostheses. Osseointegration is the process that determines the integration of dental implants into the bone. In fact, in order to properly replace the teeth, the implants must be stable and osseointegration is essential for the permanence of dental implants in our mouth.
The term osseointegration was coined in the late ’60s, by the one who first experimented it, Prof. Branemark, professor at the Institute of Applied Biotechnology in Gothenburg.
How the osseointegration of dental implants takes place
A dental implant is a screw that is inserted into the bone; to apply it, the gum is cut, the bone is prepared and the implant is inserted. The material used to build dental implants must be perfectly biocompatible. Among the various materials, the most suitable is titanium, a metal with a high degree of purity. The organism does not recognize titanium as a foreign material, on the contrary it recognizes it as its own and promotes its osseointegration.
The process of osseointegration is not taken for granted, very often, in fact, we hear of failure of dental implants due to a failed osseointegration.
This can happen for a number of reasons including inexperience and poor training of the surgeon, inadequate sterility during the intervention of dental implant insertion, poor quality of materials.
In these cases, the bone becomes inflamed and the implant fails to integrate. Sometimes, when an implant fails we hear about rejection; it is important to point out that rejection in implantology does not exist, because the failure is not due to the inability of the bone to integrate, but rather to the lack of attention to the measures listed above.
Timing of osseointegration of dental implants
In order to increase the possibility of successful osseointegration of dental implants, it would be better not to apply prostheses (capsules or bridges) immediately, but to wait for a period of 3 to 6 months, in order to allow the implants to integrate without being stressed by occlusal loads.
However, there is a technique, the immediate loading implantology, in which you can get back your missing teeth in one session, because the fixed prostheses are applied immediately after the insertion of the implants.
Studio Dr Schmitz prefers to give the patient’s bone the time biologically necessary to integrate perfectly with the implant and not to risk compromising this process with immediate loading. Immediate loading implantology increases the risk of implant failure by 270% compared to the deferred loading technique used in the Schmitz practice (source: Columbia University New York, NY USA).