As new technologies are developed in other industries, modern dentistry has kept pace, utilizing modern methods and materials that were not available even twenty years ago. These new methods not only open new areas of treatment in general and restorative dentistry, but greatly enhance the patient’s comfort and recovery time. A good example is the seeming explosion of the use of dental implants made possible in recent years through the use of titanium.
Dental implants can now be used to replace missing teeth. A titanium ‘root’ is implanted into the jaw and allowed to integrate into the surrounding tissue and bone (referred to as osseointegration). Once the ‘root’ has integrated with the structure of the jaw, a dental prosthetic is attached, creating a ‘new’ tooth.
Some patients are concerned about the safety of titanium because it is a foreign substance, but at Los Gatos Dental we know that there is simply no other metal in existence that can be introduced into the human body safely and with the benefits of titanium; it has become the metal of choice within the medical field. Titanium is: