Dear Spear Fellows,

During the covid-19, I watched a number of webinars on clinical dentistry including Straumann, Spear Education, Seattle study club, Carestream, to name a few. After watching a webinar from the Seattle Study Club and a few Straumann webinars on ProArch prosthesis, I came up wtih a question about the success rate and longevity of implant, so I had a conversation with the leader of my Seattle Study Club ( I'm also member of Spear study club ), who's a periodontist graduated from Harvard U. I'm quoting the excerpt of my conversation here and hopefully I can gather some insights from the Spear folks too.

---------------------------------------------------

Remember Dr. Adam Hamilton's webinar we did together with the Casco study club in ME? He is a prosthodontist, interim director of the Harvard implant center. If I understood him correctly, he said implant success rate = survival rate - complication rate. Survival rate is 95-98%, complication rate is 30+%, that makes the implant success rate a bit below 70%.

( He agreed and said it's true. )

I watched a few Straumann webinars on the ProArch ( fixed hybrid prosthesis ) lately. Tx options for full.mouth rehab can be the traditional FMR or can ext all teeth and do the ProArch. Usually pts are suggested with the traditional FMR to save the teeth, but some pts would say ' doc, I m tired of saving teeth, I want implant.'. Then the doc will go with the ProArch prosthesis for these pts.

That reminisces me of a recent conversation with an endodontist. He's a senior endo faculty at the U Penn, chairman of the Dean's Advisory Committee. I met him through his webinar hosted by the CareStream. He told me literature suggests after 20-25 yrs implants start to fail, so it's important to save teeth until you can't, because if implants fail, you have nothing else. This concept is consistent with what Dr. Frank Spear said in a study club DVD.

I wonder for those pts who declined traditional FMR, but elect for full mouth ext and ProArch prosthesis, how long will those implants last? Now we are taught to time pts living up to 90 yrs old, if they still have 30 yrs to live, are those full arch implant prothesis OK to last that long? What's the current literature review on implant longevity?

----------------------------------

Spear folks, what do you think about implant's success rate and longevity? Shall I tx plan an implant case knowing it might not last longer than 25 yrs? What will happen after 25 yrs if implant reaches its life span? Thanks.