Our Approach To Dental Implants

As Professor Shakib mentions in the video, Harley Street Maxillofacial Clinic believes in adhering to proven methods for dental implants. This is to ensure they are the long term answer our patients want.

There is little doubt that implants are the best solution for missing teeth, far better than bridges, or dentures. Even so, they will be better still if allowed to become a natural part of your oral bone structure.

Ensuring freedom from infection prior to placement helps with this, as will granting time for osteointegraion, so that the implanted roots are melded into your jaw.

Having this process carried out by a maxillofacial surgeon also provides oversight at each stage on any medical complications, which is essential to success.

Safety & Longevity

You may have seen marketing material promising instant implants. This often states that adding implants and crowns in one visit has been made possible by advances in technology.

There is no doubt that implant design and production have advanced, for which we are grateful. The obvious hole in the argument is that our body’s oral structure hasn’t advanced in any way.

As mentioned, failing to allow time for bone integration is not ideal, neither is medical risk. Complications such as peri-implantitis, or traumatic mucosal ulcers can be heightened by untimely implants.

We are not suggesting a dramatic failure rate for immediately loaded implants. All forms are relatively successful but research has shown a higher failure rate with shorter term techniques.

Using The Right Skills

Implants at our clinic are normally placed by a maxillofacial surgeon. Once they are firmly in place and medically all clear, treatment is finalised by a restorative dentist.

Apart from ensuring good medical cover when needed, this brings the best skills to each aspect. Our maxillofacial surgeons are world renowned but a specialist restorative dentist will still create a more perfect crown.

The dual approach is simply one more way our team help to bring patients the best solution they could have, which we believe they deserve.

Common Sense Support

Our surgeons understand the process of immediate implants and could perform them. They could equally move on without investigating every related aspect of your oral health.

The reason we do not do either is because our patients health matters, in the present and in years to come. The temptation of instant solutions is quite human but in this case, hardly the best plan.

Dental implants should be for life and are worth patience, along with skilled input. Our patients tell us this is common sense and we can not disagree.