History of Dental Implants

As a professor of surgery and research, P-I Brånemark is considered the father of modern dental Implantology. In the early 50s, he discovered the process of osseointegration, which later was referred to as the direct structural and functional connection between living bone and the surface of a load-bearing artificial implant.

This discovery was a result of a series of vital microscopic experiments on blood in mobile tissues, bone and bone marrow by placing titanium optic chambers in rabbit’s tibia. Later, it was discovered it was extremely difficult to remove these chambers for further use after a period of healing.

Since then, Brånemark and his team conducted numerous research aimed at orthopedics, joint replacements, plastic surgery and tumor defects. In 1965, Brånemark treated the first human patient Gösta Larsson with titanium dental implants who was missing teeth as a result of jaw deformities. Larsson passed away in 2006, and used his implants for more than 40 years.

The initial reaction of skepticism and doubt was overcome in 1982 in North America at the Toronto conference on osseointegration. Here, the biology, clinical research, and applications of osseointegration were presented to the world, and since then for 32 years, millions of people have been able to benefit from the life-changing contributions of osseointegration.

"Less is more, that is our ambition when it comes to dimensions and numbers of anchoring elements,” says Per-Ingvar Brånemark. In accordance with the founding father of modern implants, we can now install a full set of teeth on only four implants thanks to the new advancements in implantology. This total rehabilitation technique for the edentulous patient, known as the All-on-4® treatment concept, is a well-documented surgical and prosthetic medical procedure.

Clinics such as the SameDay Dental Clinic in Dubai utilize this treatment protocol allowing patients to have their implants and teeth placed all in the same day as opposed to the conventional technique where dental implants are loaded with teeth two or three months later.

Today, the rehabilitation of patients with oral, maxillofacial, and orthopedic impairments has been accepted and adopted by the international community and through a worldwide collaboration and ongoing research and advancements we have gained enormous knowledge for treating our patients. These advancements have allowed the clinicians to apply load-bearing implants with teeth the day of the surgery and this has had a remarkable impact into the quality of the patients’ lives.