Dr. Keith Phillips walks you through the process of how he places an implant here at Implant Dentistry Northwest
What is the CT Scanner?
A CBCT scanner stands for cone beam computerized tomography. It's a little bit different than what you would find in a hospital setting, with a lot less radiation, and gives us the information we need to help plan your dental implant. The final image gives us a three-dimensional picture of your head, the bone, the teeth, and the areas of interest that we want to evaluate to help plan your implant placement.
What is an Intraoral Scan and How Do We Use It?
The next part of the digital journey is to take intraoral scans of your teeth and gums. This will give us the information we need as to where the teeth are positioned, your bite, and what we need to do in order to formulate the best position for that dental implant. The intraoral scanner has a small wand that takes pictures of your teeth. This is in lieu of using the alginate impressions we used to in the old days, so it’s a lot more comfortable. In a matter of a minute or two, we can have all the information we need about your teeth to begin our planning process. We'll then take both the CBCT scan and the scan of your teeth and merge them together. On the computer, we can digitally filter through different implants to decide what's going to be the proper size and positioning to give you the best tooth for your situation.
How Do We Design the Implant Placement?
Once we have the information from the CT scan and the intraoral scan of your teeth, we will then take that information and put it into our computerized design program so that we can start to design where we want to place your implant. On the computer, we can digitally trace the nerve that goes through the jawbone so that we stay away from it, and then we can start to figure out where we want to place our implant. We can also digitally place a tooth in that area to help us line up exactly where we want to place that implant, so it comes right through the middle of the future implant crown.
What is a Surgical Guide?
After we have digitally planned our implant placement, we design a special surgical guide that will allow us to place the implant in exactly the position that we digitally planned. This ensures that it'll be in the position that's best suited to help retain the tooth, staying away from the nerve so that we don't cause any nerve damage, and allows you to have a nice tooth that you'll be able to function and smile with.
If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call at Implant Dentistry Northwest. We look forward to meeting with you.