Can you place an implant without surgery?
Some clinics claim that they can place dental implants without surgery. How can this be?
Well, some clinics claim that they can place the patient’s implant directly through the gum without cutting the gum to do it. This is more commonly referred to as “flapless surgery” - but as you can see, it is still called surgery.
Usually, the flapless implant placement will be carried out using a computer-generated drilling guide. This is used to help direct the drill to make the hole for the implant. This is important as flaplessly, you will be placing the implant “blind” - without being able to see the bone that you’re drilling into, as you would if you had raised a flap of gum.
To place an implant flaplessly, the site needs lots of bone and the right type of gum (keratinised mucosa) covering it. Whilst this can occasionally be the case, much more commonly, the site where the tooth used to be is missing some of the bone and gum. Placing an implant into a site like this flaplessly, even if using a computer-generated drilling guide to help the position, is high risk. It can lead to problems with a lack of bone covering the implant (which can lead to failure of the implant or the need for a bone graft) or a lack of keratinised mucosa covering the implant (which can also lead to the failure of the implant or the need for a gum graft).
At The Implant Centre, we want your implant treatment to be as simple as possible while providing a long-lasting and predictable result. Unfortunately, this is seldom possible using flapless implant placement, however, your implant clinician will discuss all possible options with you at your comprehensive initial assessment and let you know what’s possible in your particular case.
Learn more about dental implants from how expert in these videos
