The role of digital implant planning and guided surgery on simultaneous or staged horizontal bone augmentation procedures

In modern implant dentistry it has been demonstrated that ideal implant position is a critical factor to prevent future biological and technical complications. In several clinical scenarios alveolar bone atrophy is present, making challenging to place implant in an adequate prosthetically driven position and obtain primary stability. In these cases, hard tissue reconstruction is necessary to be performed simultaneously or separately to implant placement. Therefore, this lecture will focus on the application of digital implant planning and guided surgery in cases that guided bone regeneration (GBR) is necessary. It will be demonstrated how impactful the digital implant planning is for the decision-making process about staged versus simultaneous GBR. In addition, it is going to be highlighted how guided implant surgery can be implemented in both clinical scenarios to secure ideal implant position. 

Learning objectives:

• Be able to identify the important steps for data acquisition and images superimposition for a predictable digital implant planning
• Apply the concepts of digital implant planning to facilitate the decision-making process about staged versus simultaneous GBR
• Understand the surgical protocol utilizing guided implant surgery in patients with alveolar bone atrophy for simultaneous bone augmentation or for implant placement in grafted sites