Thanks to major advances in dental implant design in recent years, dental implants have become the preferred solution for edentulism. No more bizarre and wild substitutes from centuries past—now, dental implants can enable natural looking and highly functional restorative outcomes.

It’s more than aesthetic. Dental implants deliver permanent tooth restoration. Considering the high success rate for newer implants (above 97% over 10 years), dental implants have the potential to last a lifetime, leading to a better quality of life.

More and more, patients are convinced of dental implant surgery as they understand how it works and price becomes less of a prohibitive factor. Considering procedure cost and the implant’s longevity compared with other restorative options, patients readily realize their cost-effectiveness.

In response to the growing number of patients interested in dental implants, more and more general dentists are starting to expland their treatment modalities to include placement of implants. Partnering with implant manufacturers like Sterngold enables the clinician to offer a value alternative. Sterngold Dental’s TRU and PUR implants are US made conical and internal hex connection implants offered at a $99 all-in-one bundle that includes all prosthetic components with every implant. Sterngold also has the largest share of the mini (small diameter) implants market. These implants are immediate load and involve flapless surgery.

But innovation is always the goal. Robots, nano dentistry, stem cells: these are just a few of the avenues being explored.

Robot-Assisted Dental Implantation

Robots performing dental surgery? It’s not science fiction. Many advances in digital technology—such as digital workflows and dentures—have already integrated into the industry. Little wonder robotics has entered the space. By the end of 2020, there were already more than 50 dental robots in use across the US.

Robotics brings some significant benefits to dental implant procedures, including improved precision and less invasive surgery. No matter how experienced a prosthodontist, periodontist, or oral surgeon is, free-hand surgery is unlikely to match a robot’s three-dimensional accuracy and efficiency. Think of the robot as a dental assistant who can provide exact, explicit, and detailed guidance throughout the procedure.

Guided surgery procedures have already gained traction throughout the industry, as technology such as 3D imaging, CT scans, and x-rays work in tandem to map out unique solutions and engineer precise implants for patients. Computer-guided implant surgery makes for more accurate surgery and a faster procedure. What might have required several appointments can now be truncated into just one.

Researchers and clinicians are also embracing 3D printing as another technology with significant implications for the future of dental health. Scanning technology can create exact replicas of the jaw and teeth, which in turn allows for more accurate dental implants and prostheses. Implants are then manufactured using reduction printing, sculpting ceramic blocks into perfectly rendered, natural-looking implants for dental restoration. The technology is evolving fast, so get ready for new applications, enhanced design, quicker manufacturing, and superior materials.

Sterngold is a leader in restorative dentistry. It is also at the forefront of the digital denture revolution, using 3D printing and milling—using premium quality materials—to produce dentures with exceptional fit and longevity.

dental implant technology
Learn more about new and exciting advances in dental implant technology.

Nanodentistry and Dental Implants

The burgeoning field of nanotechnology has huge implications for the healthcare industry. The application of nanotechnology in dental implant surgery—increasingly used to optimize outcomes in implant procedures—is particularly exciting.

Studies have shown that modifying surface roughness on a nanoscale enhances bone-to-implant contact. This is critical to the long-term clinical performance of implants, improving adhesion, bone formation, and antibacterial capabilities. In addition, patients can look forward to less lengthy treatments and shorter overall healing times.

At present, there are several implants with nanostructured surfaces available on the market. While some are created via grit blasting, anodization, or acid etching, others use different kinds of nanocoatings. While we don’t yet fully grasp the science behind it, some researchers believe nanoparticles mimic the natural structure of human molecules, which in turn stimulates bone cells proliferation around implants.

Organic Dental Implants Using Stem Cell Technology

Stem cell technology is yet another application that shows promise for the dental industry. While the technology might still be in its infancy, imagine a future where you could use stem cells to regrow a missing tooth!

Stem cells are primitive cells with the ability to grow into many different cell types with specialized functions; such as muscle cells, brain cells, and more. Stem cells are present in embryos as well as most body tissue (albeit less abundantly), teeth included, and have the ability to reproduce themselves.

While the technology isn’t yet developed enough to engineer organic dental implants in humans, important progress has been made in animal studies. Research on mice at the University of Illinois implanted stem cell treated molars into rodent tooth sockets and found the stem cell generated implants were able to establish stable attachments between bone and tooth. Further, teeth have been grown successfully at King’s College in London from human gum cells combined with stem cells from mouse embryos. These approaches could one day be used to replant teeth lost as a result of trauma.

The Future Is Now

Seemingly sci-fi technologies like dental robots, nano dentistry, and stem cell engineered implants are closer than you’d think. But even as we wait for those technologies to round the corner into widespread functionality, there are advancements already in implementation that dentists everywhere should take advantage of.

Even if we’re still waiting for robots to do all the work one day, the mapping tools and even dynamic 3D navigation products to give turn-by-turn guidance already provide an invaluable assist to dentists in the workforce today. Whether on the field or for training purposes, guided surgery is a technological game-changer.

Likewise, digital molds can streamline the work process. Sure, we may not have perfected growing identical teeth just yet. But dentists can use 3D mapping tools to construct impossibly detailed models ahead of operations, so as to minimize uncertainties and create an implant as close to the original tooth as possible. Even if it’s not literally a patient’s own tooth yet, we can produce implants nearly indistinguishable from!

Whether it’s 3D modeling and printing now, or stem cells and nano-implants in the future, the point is that it’s time to embrace digital workflows and technology in the dentist’s office. The future—and present—is full of exciting innovations in dentistry we could have only dreamed of a decade ago. It’s time to integrate them into the workplace, to better both your and your patients’ lives.

Start Your Journey into the Future, Now.

Dental implant technology is evolving at a rapid pace, with a number of promising solutions on the horizon. The development of cutting-edge technologies is leading to enhanced outcomes, improved aesthetics, faster procedures, better fitting implants, extremely durable prostheses, and rapid recovery times. But today, there is a patient base looking to you for implant treatment.

General dentists currently place more than half of all dental implants in the US—approximately 500,000 per year—aided by helpful tools using CAD/CAM technology. Considering the number of dental implants they perform a year, the smart choice is to partner with a leader in restorative dentistry. Partnering with a dental implant company like Sterngold offers dentists a full range of quality, precision-engineered, yet affordable restorative dentistry products.

Offering conical and internal hex connection implants, small diameter implants, attachments, digital dentures, digital solutions, restorative supplies and equipment, Sterngold is the right partner for dentists looking to expand their practice. Under its umbrella solution STS™- Sterngold Total Smile™, practice and dental lab owners can find the right combination that can get their practice to the next level.