History of dental implants
Modern dental implantology began with the introduction of screw-type implants healing by osseointegration – the titanium screw is put directly into the vital jaw bone. These implants added great benefit for patients with full or partial teeth-loss situations. Modern dental implants are one of the greatest advancements in dentistry.
For single teeth treatment general options include restoration, extraction without replacement, replacement by fixed partial dentures (FPD) on natural teeth, or replacement with dental implant. Fixed partial dentures are less used today, since their use requires preparation of adjacent teeth and the sacrifice of usually healthy tooth structure. The FDPs were historically very successful but survival rates of FDPs are not comparable to single-unit implants that are the best solution nowadays. Proper use of dental implants provides benefits that could not be imagined in the past.
WHY STRAUMANN GROUP?
Most well known companies (Straumann, Dentium, Nobel Biocare, Astra, Zimmer, Biohorizons and others) produce very well designed implants. Each of them has their own literature to support why their design is the best. A study that compares 6 implant brands was made and it resulted there are no obvious differences in implant survival when comparing those 6 implant systems (you can read about this study in the next paragraph of this article). All well know and worldwide spread implant brands do work and bring benefits to patients life. However, there are more than 2.000 implant brands and it is immpossible for patient to make a research on all of them. Some of the companies even offer imitations of implants of the big companies.
At our dental clinic we use premium Neodent dental implants, which belong to the Straumann-Group. They come with a life – long warranty from the manufacturer. Straumann Group is Switzerland based company estimated in 1954 (meaning it is the oldest dental implant company on the market) and it is one of 3 most popular dental implants brand in the world. Straumann – Neodent offers proven, reliable, long-lasting solution for patients with partial or full loss of tooth or teeth. You can find more about Straumann Group on Wikipedia.
THE STUDY
In a study Comparison of dental implant systems: quality of clinical evidence and prediction of 5-year survival a letter was sent to 6 implant manufacturers requesting 10 references each that validated the manufacturer’s implant system in a variety of clinical applications. References were reviewed and classified relative to strength of evidence. Comparisons of implant survival data from 5-year studies were made, and data were pooled to establish an overall 5-year survival rate with confidence intervals (CIs).
RESULTS OF THE STUDY:
A total of 69 references were provided by the 6 implant manufacturers (Astra Tech, Centerpulse, Dentsply/Friadent, Implant Innovations, Nobel Biocare, and Straumann – Straumann-Group is the type of dental implants that is used at our dental clinic Smile Clinic Slovakia) but only 59 articles were available for review. Most of the references were level-4 (case series) or level-5 (expert opinion) articles. Five-year survival data were extracted from 17 articles demonstrating overlap of CIs from the weighted average of the pooled data from each specific manufacturer; substantial equivalence of all implant systems was demonstrated based upon survival alone at 5 years. When all data were pooled, the 5-year survival rate of 96% (CI: 93% to 98%) was observed for a total of 7,398 implants.
No obvious differences in implant survival were observed when comparing implant system.
SOURCES: Albrektsson et al., 1986; Torabinejad et al., 2007; De Backer et al., 2008; Eckert SE1, Choi YG, Sánchez AR, Koka S.  Comparison of dental implant systems: quality of clinical evidence and prediction of 5-year survival