Immediate implant placement: can we continue to improve?

Immediate implant placement and loading is a practice that continues to gain traction in the field of implant dentistry, largely driven by patients and clinicians to reduce treatment time and improve satisfaction. Although implant survival rates are high with immediately placed implants, there is often an increase in complications and a lack of primary implant stability. How can we improve these issues, to meet the needs of both patients and clinicians? Novel implant designs that facilitate increased primary stability, while not compromising osseointegration and long-term survival, are important and necessary to bring immediacy to the forefront of accepted protocols. Evaluating preclinical data that confirms primary stability and osseointegration is essential, as is clinical data to determine predictable treatment protocols. This lecture will present large animal data on fully-tapered implants with aggressive cutting flutes (BLX), followed by clinical performance and patient outcomes. With increasing demand for immediate implant placement and loading, fully tapered implants that achieve both high primary stability and bone-to-implant contact (osseointegration) are an ideal solution for immediate placement and loading.

Learning objectives:

• Discuss evidence-based approaches for immediate implant placement
• Acquire preclinical data on primary stability and bone-to-implant contact (osseointegration) of the BLX implant
• Discuss clinical cases for immediate implant placement of the BLX implant