We have seen a significant increase in the number of patients who have experienced a mechanical or biological failure in regards to dental implants and implant bridgework recently. This is often because the treatment was carried out many years ago.
There are greatly increased numbers who had restorations placed more than ten years ago now, including some of our own patients.
Fractured Implants
Occasionally the mechanical components can suffer fatigue fractures, exampled perfectly by the picture of the fractured gold screw here which was removed from an implant placed by Dr Murphy in 2005.
This patient grinds his teeth and wears a mouth guard to protect his teeth and implant bridgework. It’s not the first gold screw he has broken within an implant restoration although luckily we managed to retrieve the component the last time.
He is so far the only dental implant patient to have suffered from this particular type of problem at our practices.