Arizona Center for Implant, Facial and Oral Surgery Blog

The dental implants used by most dentists and dental specialists today are root-form implants. This basically means that they are
replacement, or substitute tooth roots, used to replace natural tooth roots in areas of the mouth where teeth are missing.

The reason it is so important to replace the tooth root and not just the visible part of the tooth (crown) is that natural tooth roots,
which are embedded in the bone, preserve the bone.  When teeth are missing, the bone that previously supported those teeth melts away, or deteriorates. This process is called bone resorption.

However, the bone can be preserved by replacing missing tooth roots with dental implants. Since the bone actually forms a strong bond to the
implants, they can serve the same functions as natural tooth roots: a strong foundation for biting and chewing, and stimulation for the bone to hold it in
place.  With an overall success rate of about 95%, and over 50 years of clinical research, dental implants have the best long-term prognosis of any
method of tooth replacement.

When patients hear that they need to have their wisdom teeth removed, the fear creeps in and the words ‘dry socket’ are usually not far behind. Inevitably, they have had a family member or acquaintance share a bad experience with dry sockets after having wisdom teeth removed. Dry sockets have been studied over the years and have been associated with trauma during extraction, type of anesthetics used, oral contraceptive use, gender, tooth location, smoking and other factors. When initial clot formation fails to mature, the normal socket healing sequence does not occur and dry sockets are the result.

Platelet Rich Fibrin

Platelet Rich Fibrin (PRF) is the solution to dry sockets. We recently conducted a study comparing the rate of dry sockets with 84 consecutive patients having wisdom teeth removed using PRF to a group without PRF. Our success rate in eliminating dry sockets with PRF was 100%!

A road to faster healing…
What is PRF? PRF is Platelet Rich Fibrin. It is a natural, biological fibrin that stimulates bone and soft tissue growth for faster healing capability. PRF is created by collecting a small sample of your blood and spinning it in a centrifuge. This creates a fibrin clot that is rich in platelets. The clot can be molded and
compressed to use as a ‘cap’ over extraction sites. This physically protects the open wound and
the growth factor of the platelets helps stimulate and direct stem cell migration to speed up wound healing.

The PRF method was originated by Dr. Joseph Choukroun in France and the benefits of PRF have been scientifically documented. We conducted our own study with patients whose treatment included PRF compared to a control group whose treatment did not. In the cases with PRF, healing time and post operative pain was significantly reduced, allowing patients to continue to the next phase of treatment much sooner. PRF eliminates dry sockets and puts patients on the road to faster healing with all extraction, implant and grafting sites. In fact, you’ll find that PRF is used in many forms of surgery in other areas of medicine. Our office strives to be on the cutting edge of technology utilizing scientifically proven techniques to provide patient care with comfortable, predictable, long term results.

Doctor Qualifications

There is a general misconception that any dentist is qualified to surgically place implants. The truth is that it is legal for any licensed dentist to place implants; however, not every dentist has had extensive training in implant procedures, or experience handling potential complications that can occur.

In the right hands, implant treatment is extremely successful. Surgical specialists (oral
surgeons and periodontists) have had extensive training and experience with surgical procedures and complications. Most surgical specialists have had extensive training in implant procedures, and many also have a great deal of experience with implant surgery.

Unfortunately, many “non-surgical” dentists begin to surgically place implants after taking an abbreviated (1-3 days) training course on implant surgery. These courses do not prepare the participants to predict, diagnose and treat potential complications

It is important to understand that complications can occur even when experienced surgical
specialists are treating patients . However, due to their extensive training and experience managing complications, they are prepared to handle these situations.

Since implant placement is a surgical procedure, and there is no law that requires dentists
to have extensive training prior to surgically placing implants, it is critical for patients to ask questions about training and experience prior to undergoing implant surgery.  For more information:  www.missingteeth.org