Natural tooth replacement – case explained, step by step

Missing front tooth

I was asked to replace this patient’s missing central incisor with a fixed solution. A dental implant was the ideal option we decided to use. I will talk you through the stages of the treatment following the initial dental implant surgery.

Dental implant placement

A minor surgical procedure is carried out to carefully place the dental implant in the precise location required to fit the future tooth in the correct place. This procedure is normally carried out under local analgesia, it is painless.

Following the procedure, the patient experienced mild swelling around the upper lip which subsided after 3 days.

Gum healing following surgery

Following the placement of the dental implant, the gum will have healed fully after around 10-12 weeks. At this stage you can see that the gum has a healthy pink appearance and the implant is positioned 3mm below the surface level of the gum.

 Impressions of the mouth and dental implant are taken at this stage and sent to our laboratory technician, Stephen Green. Stephen is a highly skilled technician who has vast experience in creating natural looking teeth. This will provide him with the information required to accurately design and manufacture this patient’s tooth.

The dental implant abutment

An abutment is screwed in to the implant to provide a ‘core’ for the future crown to fit on to. In this case I used a ‘tooth-coloured’ abutment to ensure that the final tooth would posses the same optical properties as would be expected by an incisor tooth at the front of the mouth.

In this case I used an abutment made out of zirconium to provide a natural tooth-like inner core to the future tooth.

The final restoration – a complete tooth

Finally, an E-max crown is fitted over the abutment to give the appearance of a natural tooth. Each tooth is tailor made to ensure the shape, colour and symmetry matches the existing teeth in the patient’s mouth. We use impressions, clinical photographs and digital scans to ensure the aesthetic outcome of each tooth is completely natural.

The final result is completely natural and it is difficult to tell which tooth is actually the ‘implant tooth‘. This patient was very pleased to have her tooth back.

• Dr Mohsin Patel