Hi Trudie, without knowing the full details of your niece's case I can only give you a limited opinion, but here goes. There are many many different implant systems available and varying degrees of clinical competencies and experiences of practitioners. I've been a dentist for many years and seen many new techniques develop, only for things to come full circle and dentists/specialist re-adopt the more reliable tried and tested methods. I also need implants at some point after a dodgy bike accident,  but i will steer clear of immediate implants. I would be a little cautious if your Niece has a tooth abscess. After removing an abscessed tooth there will always be residual infection remaining in the dental socket which takes time to resolve, even with the best irrigation and antimicrobial therapy. It is important that the socket has time to heal for a few months so that there is a solid bed of bone to place a good sized implant. We now assess the geography of the bone with 3D x-ray technology so we can see where best to place the implant.   Immediately placing an implant and loading it with a crown in my opinion too risky. It is of course more convenient for everybody in that its a quick fix and its a lot cheaper, but i would be interested to see a long term audit, (5-15 years)  on the success of these types of implants. Unfortunately, the temptation to get implants at a much cheaper rate, or to get them abroad is on the increase and i've seen a number of failed cases where the patient selection was clearly wrong and implants should never have been placed. We are seeing many more patients that are treated for implants now, possibly because patients are better educated regarding their treatment options, and in some cases because they are relatively cheap compared to a something like a porcelain bridge, but we are also seeing an increase in failure from peri-implantitis. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/10964601/Peri-implantitis-The-time-bomb-in-dental-implants.html) On the flip side of the argument, there are many people who have had implants for years and it continues to be a great treatment option if the case selection, planning, clinical expertise and post operative maintenance are all optimum. Hope the above helps

Entire Thread

Topic	Date Posted	Posted By
Dental Implants	28/10/14 14:27:00	Trudie Fuller
Re:Dental Implants	28/10/14 14:49:00	Janine Jarvis
Re:Dental Implants	28/10/14 14:49:00	Sean Wales
Re:Re:Dental Implants	28/10/14 17:15:00	Andy Pease
Re:Re:Re:Dental Implants	28/10/14 17:31:00	Tracey Szwagrzak
Re:Re:Re:Dental Implants	28/10/14 17:33:00	Pete Mayes
Re:Dental Implants	28/10/14 17:56:00	David Mantle
Re:Re:Dental Implants	28/10/14 18:21:00	Trudie Fuller
Re:Re:Re:Dental Implants	28/10/14 18:39:00	Sean Wales
Re:Re:Re:Re:Dental Implants	28/10/14 18:50:00	Pete Mayes
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Dental Implants	29/10/14 15:33:00	Tony Buchanan

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