What is implant exposure?
What is implant exposure?
After the implant has been in use for many years, bone loss around the implant might happen. Bone loss or depletion is in most cases a physiological process and its occurrence does not necessarily depend on the patient or the dentist. An implant exposure of 1 mm to 1.5 mm is not critical, but the exposure of 2 mm or more will start bothering the patient with such symptoms as pain, bleeding, unpleasant smell from the mouth, stacking of food, and for aesthetic reasons.
Different treatment methods have been suggested to deal with this problem. One of them is reconstruction of the bone surrounding the implant. But the exposed part of the implant is already contaminated, and the bone will not regenerate around a contaminated titanium surface.
Unfortunately today’s medicine still has not developed efficient procedures allowing to clean the contaminated implant directly in the mouth cavity. This is the reason why the exposed implant should be removed and a new one installed in its place.
To replace an old implant with a new one requires serious surgical interventions:
First of all, the non-exposed part of the implant is still tightly bonded with the bone, so when the implant is removed, a part of the bone tissue has to be removed too.
Second, after the implant with a part of bone tissue has been removed, it is necessary to restore the damaged bone and only afterwards to place a new implant.
What is more, the above procedures are painful and rather costly.
And above all, after a new implant has been installed, a total replacement of the implant supported denture is necessary.