Description:

Dental implants treatment is generally associated with positive patient-centered outcomes. It provides a safe and predictable treatment option, especially for completely edentulous patients who otherwise, would be faced with wearing conventional removable prostheses. While a number of digital workflows have been proposed, we are ultimately treating an analog patient and it is in the oral cavity that the proverbial rubber “meets the road”, especially when it comes to biomaterial complications. These complications are quite frequent in full-arch restorations, appear almost unavoidable, and occur at a greater rate than in partially edentulous patients. With dental implant being placed in different patient age cohorts, the clinician and the patient will be faced with the need to repair and remake the prostheses several times over the lifetime of a patient. This presentation will review the prosthetic complications that are associated with full-arch implant treatment modalities, the relevant patient outcomes, and present the results of an ongoing clinical study of highly cross-linked polymeric-metal biomaterials combination.

Lecture objectives:

1) To highlight the available data related to prosthetic biomaterials complications in full-arch implant prostheses.
2) To understand how monolithic polymeric materials may provide a predictable and affordable treatment alternative.
3) To describe the results of an ongoing clinical study of highly cross-linked polymeric-metal biomaterials combination for full-arch prostheses.