subject: Iverson Dental Labs Stories! History of dental labs! [print this page] Iverson Dental Labs Stories! History of dental labs!
Believe it or not, the history of dental implants begins more than 1300 years ago with the ancient Mayans. Back in 600 AD, a young woman was missing some of her lower teeth. The same as any modern woman, she wanted her smile beautified. She received what is perhaps one of the world's first dental implants. It was made from pieces of shell shaped to resemble teeth.
A 1930s archaeological dig led Dr. Wilson Popenoe in Honduras turned up the ancient dental implant. Similar discoveries were made when excavating ancient Egyptian artifacts. The Egyptian implants were made from shells and ivory. It was decades after these archaeological discoveries before the modern world caught up with the Mayans' dental technology.
Twenty years after archaeologists discovered the mandible, a Swedish professor named Per-Ingvar Brnemark made the first big stride towards today's dental implant procedures (known as oral implantology)
. In 1951, this orthopedic surgeon came across the concept quite by accident, but a fortuitous accident it was.
Professor Brnemark and his research team were studying microscopic aspects of the bones' healing process in lab at the University of Lund. During one of their experiments, a titanium metal cylinder was screwed into the thighbone of an animal test subject.
As it would turn out, perhaps their most important discovery was not made until after the initial experiment was wrapped up. Upon further examination of the bone and metal cylinder, Professor Brnemark observed something surprising: the metal cylinder had fused with the bone.
It didn't take long to realize the enormous potential of this technique. Dr. Brnemark began focusing on how he could use osseointegration, which is what he named the phenomenon, to help humans.
Commercial oral implantology grew during the 1980s. Osseointegration was being used to permanently affix bridges and individual teeth into patients' mouths. The implants proved to be successful in over 90% of the cases. The modern dental implant had arrived!
Ancient history Egyptians shaped seashells and hammered them directly into the gums for the purpose of replacing teeth. Ivory and the bones of animals were also sometimes used to replace missing teeth.
1700s Lost teeth were often replaced with teeth from human donors. The process was mostly unsuccessful due to immune system reactions to the foreign material.
1800s Gold, platinum and other metal alloys were used experimentally and placed into sockets where teeth had been freshly extracted in an attempt to create suitable replacements. Long-term success rates were extremely poor.
1952 A doctor in Sweden accidentally discovered that titanium can bond irreversibly with living bone tissue. (Titanium is the same material that has been successfully used in knee and hip replacements for more than 30 years.)
1965 The Birth of Modern Implants! The process of purposely implanting titanium in bone for the purpose of rooting prosthetic teeth began.
1981 The Swedish doctor who made the titanium discovery published a paper covering all the data he had amassed regarding titanium implants.
1982 The Toronto Conference on Osseointegration in Clinical Dentistry created the first guidelines for what would be considered successful implant dentistry.
2002 An ADA survey showed that oral and oral and maxillofacial surgeons, periodontists, and general dentists near doubled the number of implants performed per dentist between 1995 and 2002.
Today You can be among the many patients that will benefit from implant dentistry in the coming year and
