The Inventor of Dental Implants

Article Written By: georgebaxter

Although dental implants may have existed on one form or another as far back as 2000 BC in the Mayan and Egyptian civilisations, and in the 16th and 17th century in the developed world, the have only existed in their modern titanium form since the early 1980s. As with many great inventions, the person who invented dental implants in their modern titanium form came did so as a result of an accidental discovery.

In 1952 Dr Per Branemark - a Swedish Surgeon – was conducting research into bone regeneration and healing. He adopted a technique previously used by researchers at Cambridge University which involved embedding a piece of titanium into the living tissue of rabbits. Dr Branemark surgically placed the titanium in the lower part of the leg of the rabbit to act as a guide and support for bone healing and regeneration. Three months later he attempted to remove the titanium from the rabbits, but discovered that it was not possible to remove them.

Dr Branemark noticed that the bone had regenerated so closely to the titanium that it had essentially integrated with the metal. He termed this phenomena 'osseointegration' and the word is now in common usage among medical professionals. Over the next decade Branemark conducted a great deal of research into the subject buy carrying out controlled experiments with both human volunteers and animals.

The research initially centered around hip and knee implants but subsequently decided to concentrate on dental implants as more subjects were available due to a high occurrence of tooth-loss in the population. The research confirmed the original findings and he thoroughly documented the unique way in which the body and its immune system accept titanium implants.

Dr Branemark was employed at Gothenburg University, Sweden as a Professor of Anatomy when he surgically placed the very first dental implant which was made from titanium into the jaw of a human volunteer patient in 1965.

Throughout the following 14 years Branemark conducted and published numerous scientific studies relating to the application of titanium dental implants. during the late seventies he entered into a business partnership with Bofors - a Swedish defence company - in order to develop and eventually market of his innovative titanium implants. Bofors later became Nobel Industries under its parent company Noble Biocare, which is now known as a world leading company in dental implant manufacturing.

In 1981 Branemark published a peer reviewed paper which included all the findings which he had made during his extensive period of research. Shortly after, a conference in Clinical Dentistry and Osseointegration was held in Toronto to draw up medical guidelines regarding the placement of tritium dental implants by qualified dental surgeons, marking the birth of modern dental implants.

Dental implants are now an increasingly common cosmetic dentistry procedure and are widely regarded as the best solution for patients with missing teeth. Although implant technology is progressing all time with modern technological advancements, Dr Per Branemark's research provided the foundation modern dental implantology.

About the Author

Dental Care Plus (UK) is a British based provider of dental implants providing a much lower dental implant cost for their patients.

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