Dental Implant Failure Failure of a dental implant is often related to the failure of the implant to os seointegrate correctly with

the bone, or vice-versa. A dental implant is conside red to be a failure if it is lost, mobile or shows peri-implant (around the impl ant) bone loss of greater than 1.0 mm in the first year and greater than 0.2 mm a year after. Dental implants are not susceptible to dental caries but they can develop a cond ition called peri-implantitis. This is an inflammatory condition of the mucosa a nd/or bone around the implant which may result in bone loss and eventual loss of the implant. The condition is usually, but not always, associated with a chroni c infection. Peri-implantitis is more likely to occur in heavy smokers, patients with diabetes, patients with poor oral hygiene and cases where the mucosa aroun d the implant is thin. Currently there is no universal agreement on the best treatment for peri-implant itis. The condition and its causes is still poorly understood. Risk of failure is increased in smokers. For this reason implants are frequently placed only after a patient has stopped smoking as the treatment is very expens ive. More rarely, an implant may fail because of poor positioning at the time of surgery, or may be overloaded initially causing failure to integrate. If smokin g and positioning problems exist prior to implant surgery, clinicians often advi se patients that a bridge or partial denture rather than an implant may be a bet ter solution. Failure may also occur independently of the causes outlined above. Implants like any other object suffers from wear and tear. If the implant(s)in question are r eplacing commonly used teeth, then these may suffer from wear and tear and after years may crack and break up, although this is a very rare occurrence. The only way to minimize the risk of this happening is to visit your local dentist for r egular reviews. In the majority of cases where an implant fails to integrate with the bone and i s rejected by the body the cause is unknown. This may occur in around 5% of case s. To this day we still do not know why bone will integrate with titanium dental implants and why it does not reject the material as a 'foreign body'. Many theo ries have been postulated over the last five decades. A recent theory argues tha t rather than being an active biological tissue response, the integration of bon e with an implant is the lack of a negative tissue response. In other words, for unknown reasons the usual response of the body to reject foreign objects implan ted into it does not function correctly with titanium implants. It has further b een postulated that an implant rejection occurs in patients whose bone tissues a ctually react as they naturally should with the 'foreign body' and reject the im plant in the same manner that would occur with most other implanted materials.