Health Alert: New dental implants

Health Alert: New dental implants
April 15, 2005
By Dawndy Mercer
WISTV
The Food and Drug Administration has just given the green light to a new fluoride-coated dental implant that may save smiles everywhere. The fluoride actually helps build bone and speeds healing.
Sandy Strouse hasn't always been a big fan of the dentist, "I had some bad experiences when I was younger and it stuck with me."
For the past few years, she's been willing to brave the chair to save her smile. Dr. Scott Gradwell is replacing one of Sandy's front teeth with a OsseoSpeed dental implant. It's just approved and fluoride coated, "Astra Zeneca has placed tioblast on the outside of their implant, which has been shown to fuse the jaw bone three times quicker. Now they've added fluoride, that household name that we all know about in our toothpaste into the tioblast, which is allowing the implant to fuse much quicker."
Since the implant fuses quickly, Dr. Gradwell says Sandy's implant is strong enough to support a custom-made temporary tooth, "She doesn't have a gaping hole for three months. And she doesn't have to wear something that's removable."
The OsseoSpeed implant was developed and studied extensively in Europe. Dr. Gradwell is one of the first in the US to use it, "What the studies have shown and they're five years in the making now, is that the fluoride stimulates the clot cells and the jaw bone cells to grow more jawbone cells. And the quicker the bone adheres to the dental implant, the more bone fuses to it and the stronger the bone fuses to it, therefore we have a longer prognosis, the implant will last longer."
In addition to allowing patients the chance to leave the office with a fixed temporary tooth, doctors say this implant can also be used for patients who could not have implants in the past like those with osteoporosis. The OsseoSpeed dental implants run about the same cost as traditional implants.