Guided Dental Implant Placement
In our office, we use advanced technology to support precise dental implants through guided placement. We have an ICAT – this is a 3D CT Scanner that scans the head and jaws. It gives us an exact 3-D model of your jaws. It is also the same technology as a CAT scan you would receive in a hospital setting.
With this information, we can directly plan your implant case during your consultation. A surgical guide is also planned on the computer that takes your planned dental implant surgery and converts it into a hard model (guide) that can be placed on the gums, allowing precise placement of dental implants into the jaws.
This technology is especially helpful when coordinating complex cases involving restorative dentistry or multiple missing teeth.
Benefits:
- Many cases are flapless – meaning no incision is required. Think of laparoscopic surgery versus a large open incision.
- Can reduce operator error by replicating and transporting a planned dental implant position from a computer model directly to the operating room.
- Faster surgery – many times a guide can reduce a one-hour surgery to as little as 15 minutes.
- Often results in less discomfort and may reduce the need for extended sedation dentistry.
Limitations:
- If you have a very small mouth and cannot open wide, guided surgery can be impossible.
- If teeth are to be extracted, especially when an entire arch of teeth is removed, there is no definitive structure to anchor the guide. These cases are performed open (with a flap) to provide direct visualization and proper bone management, sometimes including bone grafting.
What are the steps: 
- You will always need an initial consultation to determine your treatment plan.
- A CT scanning model will be created by our lab, and you will return for a CT scan with the scanning model in place.
- Once scanned, we will construct the surgical guide, and after about a week, we can schedule your guided dental implant procedure through our general dentistry team.