Dental implants have skyrocketed in popularity recently because of dramatic improvements in success rates and the level of restorative tooth function they can provide. Like most revolutionizing medical and dental advances, dental implants have a long history over which time their viability has continued to increase. Only in the last couple of decades has their reliability really skyrocketed as demonstrated in clinical studies. This article outlines why today’s implants are so much more successful and what factors contribute to the success. See how dental implants are placed for an overview of the process and illustrative images of implant components.

Early Evidence of Dental Implants – Low Success
In the 1930’s, an excavation of the remains of a young Mayan woman, believed to date back to about 600 AD, revealed some of the first-known evidence of dental implants. Actually, these implants were initially believed to have been placed for adornment after the young woman’s death – a practice that was quite common in ancient Egypt. It was 1970 before a Brazilian professor used radiography to provide evidence that the Mayan woman’s dental implants (made of seashells) were placed before her death. The x-rays showed that bone had regenerated around two of the three implants. The scarcity of similar artifacts suggest a very low success rate at that time, although the Mayan culture was certainly noted for its advances and achievements. Little was likely known about why those dental implants worked (and why most others did not).

Experimentation Continued – Successes Not Well Understood
Heavy experimentation in dental implants occurred in the 19th century. Gold and platinum were the materials typically used, and implants were frequently placed immediately after an extraction. By that time, the 18th century attempts to implant human teeth had already provided evidence that the human body would reject someone else’s teeth. Even the 19th century implants that were initially successful didn’t seem to last.

An Accidental 20th Century Breakthrough Provides Important Clues
The revolutionary advances in dental implants began in the 1950s when Swedish orthopedic surgeon Dr. P.I. Br