Better Treatment Option
Dental implant or bridge?
Recently one of my relative came to Singapore for some official training of two weeks and suddenly he developed a toothache. So I brought him to our dental center unit of National University Hospital (NUH) and only found that one of his teeth is in very bad condition and needs to be removed. He understood the situation but wanted to know what could be done to replace that removed tooth. Several options were given like implant, bridge or denture prosthesis. He asked me what was the advantage of implant over dental bridges? Then I thought about letting know more people regarding the advantages of implants over conventional dental bridges. If we have missing tooth, how do we replace it now? The most common practice now is to have a dental bridge. For the bridge work of a single missing tooth, normally we cut the adjacent two healthy teeth in to a smaller shape and size to put the bridge on top. If we want to bridge teeth adjacent to a missing tooth, we have to cut down the healthy teeth first. Then a three unit cap made joined together to form the bridge. The bridge is then cemented in to place. But making bridges has its drawbacks and limitations as well. Sometimes cutting the tooth into smaller size makes it sensitive, so we also may need to do a root canal treatment for that tooth though it was healthy. Two studies done at Eastman Dental Institute, University College London and at University of Wales College of Medicine UK showed that the overall success rate of root canal treatment is about 68-87 percent. That means, still there is chance of failure of RCT which was done to your healthy teeth and if your supporting teeth for the bridge fails, the whole bridge has to be removed and with the support of another new healthy teeth, you can have another bigger bridge if you want. So we can see to replace one lost tooth we are putting two healthy teeth at a risk of losing. But with implants, no need to touch any adjacent teeth. Even implants can be used for a bridge work in case of many missing teeth. The implants replace your missing tooth so naturally that you will have the feeling of getting back the natural one. You can also eat and chew more care freely.
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