The Ankylos Implant System by Dentsply
After you have placed or at least restored a
few implants with ideal position, vertical height, and occlusion, you've
probably seen a little bone loss circumferentially around the neck of the
implant.
This loss is commonly called "cratering" or
"die-back," and many professionals agree it is just an accepted
consequence of implant therapy. I say, however, that this assumption is
wrong! I think it's wrong for dentists and potentially harmful to patients
to simply accept what has seemed to be unavoidable for most implant
systems. I am so confident in my opinion because I've found an implant
system that doesn't exhibit cratering, that doesn't ask you to reduce
crown size or contours or to minimize occlusal forces, that conserves more
bone volume and therefore tissue volume, and that is backed by over ten
years of clinical data and university studies. This new system is called
ANKYLOS, and it provides a revolutionary connection to prevent bone loss.
With implant systems, it's the connection
that really counts. Other implant systems have external hexes, internal
hexes, and triangles, and configurations that all share one common
characteristic: movement after placement. The very fact that you can
easily insert and remove an abutment into various mechanical locking
anti-rotationally designed implant connections indicates a less than
perfect fit. The fact that you can see and smell bio debris after removing
a healing abutment or final abutment after it has been in place for a few
weeks tells you that bacteria has been leaking around that connection.
Recently, one company announced that it had
reduced the microgap by half that of a competing company, meaning there
product still has a microgap present. Any gap is simply not good enough. A
microgap allows a combination of micromovement and bacteria infiltration,
resulting over time in bone loss.
For the past several months, a pilot program
in the United States has studied, placed, and restored with the ANKYLOS
implant system. ANKYLOS has been in use for over ten years in Germany and
other countries. I am privileged to have been a part of this study. I've
used this implant system in my practice; I've discussed results with other
pilot program dentists; and I've traveled to Germany to see first hand the
clinical results and the radiographic evidence and SEM studies of the
components. ANKYLOS is sold under the Dentsply umbrella of companies and
became available to doctors in the United States in October 2004.
The ANKYLOS implant is placed 1 to 2 mm
below the crest of the bone. It can be placed at the crest, but to gain
the maximum benefit of hard and soft tissue contours, placing below the
crest is better. The internal conical connector is 2.4 mm in diameter no
matter what size diameter implant you place.
The threads of this implant are more
accentuated as you go apically in order to engage the medullary bone for
stability. The cortical bone at the crest is denser but also more fragile
when stressed. Therefore, when stress occurs, the cortical bone melts
away, or "craters," while the medullary bone, being more resilient,
repairs itself, probably due to better blood supply. But the real key to
success with this implant is the tapered (5.6º) conical connector. It has
been precisely engineered to be bacteria proof and exhibit no
micromovement. There is no microgap, therefore bacteria cannot infiltrate
the implant abutment junction, ever.
This strong, rigid, sealed interface into an
implant anchored into the medullary bone yields results that experienced
implant dentists find hard to believe. Not only is the bone preserved at
the crest, there are cases documented where bone growth over the platform
of the implant is proven over time via radiographs. And, because the bone
volume is preserved, the tissue volume is preserved as well. Also, the
shape of the connector encourages more tissue (including circumferential
and perpendicular fibers) to support the abutment/crown complex. In a
nutshell, the aesthetics are great and long lasting, as is the tissue
health.
Most implant systems are very comparable in
their design and engineering. They share many common characteristics and
have similar strengths and weaknesses. Their significant weaknesses are
microgap and the resulting micromovement allowing bacterial contamination
and bone loss. To solve these problems, ANKYLOS has constructed a tapered
conical connector that is engineered to eliminate the microgap, and
therefore eliminate the causes of crestal bone loss. This is more than
just another implant system—this is the next generation of implant
systems.
(This article was originally published in Aesthetic Dentistry, Winter 2005
issue.)
Jon Julian received his D.D.S. degree from
the University of Kansas City Dental School in 1978 and maintains a
practice in McPherson, Kansas. He is a member of the Dr. Dick Barnes Group
and is the instructor of the Implant EZ seminars.
Click here to find dental implant books.
More articles
America's Dental Bookstore maintains this collection of articles on dentistry submitted by visitors to our site. These
could be clinical tips, research articles, opinion articles, dental jokes, or
whatever. Do you have something you'd like to submit? If so, click here to submit an article. |