DENTAL IMPLANT MAINTENANCE- KEY STRATEGIES AND ESSENTIAL PRACTICES

Placement of implant requires an interdisciplinary approach wherein a team of dental implant specialists including oral surgeons, prosthodontist, periodontist and oral radiologist participate in planning, execution and maintenance of the implants to ensure the best possible outcome. Once the implants have been placed in the edentulous region routine maintenance, recall evaluations and radiographs are necessary to ensure the long life of these restorations, and this necessitates the team of dental implant specialists to be well versed with the implant maintenance procedures as well, as an implant failure would result in debate, which would give the profession no credit. These procedures are usually performed at selected intervals to assist the patient in maintaining oral implant health. Minimizing the incidence of implant loss by regular monitoring of patient and preventing the recurrence of disease progression in previously treated peri-implantitis patients along with increasing the probability of locating and treating peri-implant pathology in timely manner are the main therapeutic goals of maintenance therapy.