Dental implant problems

What are some common dental implant problems?

Loose abutment screw

This one is a fairly easy fix unless in the front of the mouth and access to the screw is not straight forward.  The hard part is figuring out why the screw is loose.  Most often it is a lateral excessive contact.  The screw should be replaced with a new screw if this occurs.  This occurs somewhere around 0-6% Pjetursson 2014

Fractured abutment screw

Much more complicated issue.  Can sometimes be removed with a piezo.  If cold welded then that is a problem.  Here are the steps and options to fix a dental implant screw fracture.

Abutment screw fracture

Fracture of abutment

Never really happened until we started using ceramic abutments or hybrid implant abutments.  What actually works is being figured out and I don’t feel is as much as a problem as was few years ago.

Fracture or chipping of crown

Fairly common and is treated the same as if occurred on a regular tooth.  This is more common on dental implants due to lack of proprioceptive feedback.  Pjetursson 2014 found this in 3-35% @ 5 years.

Cement sepsis

Major issue because it can cause loss of implant and is very common.  Again, this is a problem that many of “solved” through better techniques.  Not using resin cement and using custom abutments along with a duplicate of the abutment to aid in cementing should solve this problem.

Open contacts

A dental implant doesn’t change position in the bone but teeth do.  Thus as time goes on some people will develop an open space in-between a dental implant crown and a adjacent tooth.  It usually occurs on the mesial (front side) of the dental implant crown due to mesial drift.  It is an annoying problem but not detrimental and can often be repaired fairly easily.

 

While there is certainly other dental implant problems, especially surgical dental implant problems, these are the most common.

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