History of dental Implants
About 35 years ago a Swedish researcher called Per-Ingvar Brånemark discovered that if a commercially pure titanium screw was placed in bone, the bone would heal completely against the titanium resulting in a rigid attachment. He called this process osseointegration and all modern implant systems, and there are many, rely on this basic principle.
He realised that this process could be used in the mouth to help people who had lost all their teeth. He placed two implants in the lower jaw and used these to help to hold in a lower denture. Most of these implants are still in place some thirty years later.
In the 1980s implantologists began to use implants to hold in fixed bridges and individual teeth and found that success rates of over 90% could be expected. Over the years further research has shown that modifying the surface of the titanium to roughen it can result in faster more predictable healing and so most implant surfaces are now modified. Usually implants are placed in the bone and left for a while to allow for healing however in certain cases implants can now be loaded immediately.
The Brånemark system is now manufactured by Nobel Biocare and there are many other systems available.