How human applications began. Why osseointegration would work and how it did in the first patients treated. Basic facts and philosophical thoughts.

• In this document on osseointegration in the rehabilitation of edentulous individuals, a summarizing clinical and radiographic presentation of patients, who were among the first to be treated in accordance with this concept, will be made. In 1969, a state of third dentition was provided for a then 45-year-old woman. Four fixtures - 5 mm long with diameter 3.5 mm - were anchored in each jaw. The achieved rehabilitation was successfully maintained until her death in 2001 - 32 years later. Since 1965, all edentulous patients treated according to the osseointegration philosophy have been regularly monitored with respect to clinical status and function by means of a standardized protocol 1-7 . To provide an understanding of the efficiency of the clinical procedures and of possible early and late problems in maintaining a longterm rehabilitation, achieved by a third dentition, we have now selected all patients initially treated between 1971 and 1975. Using an end-point in the year 2001, this yields a minimum of 26 years' follow-up of a reasonably standardized clinical procedure, applied to a group of 138 consecutive edentulous patients: 78 maxillae and 72 mandibles; 54 males and 84 females. We also present some of the early, pioneer, patients to provide a feeling of the technical, biologic and psychological reality at the time of introduction of osseointegration to clinical dentistry. Most of these patients were also included in the initial publications from the introduction and development periods. The goal was to establish a jawbone-anchored third dentition within the limits of acceptable side effects and reasonable requirement on adjustments, even in the perspective of the entire lifetime of the patient l.2 .To illustrate what often meets a new clinical procedure that is introduced into a sometimes, and understandably, fairly hostile atmospherebecause of concern for patient safety - we have chosen to use radiographs as an objective method of documentation.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Odontologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Dentistry (hsv//eng)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kap (ämneskategori)