Article 28 – “How the dental implant was given birth.”
Many people may not be aware but the modern dental implant that is in use today was made entirely possible by a pure accident. This all began with a Swedish orthopedic surgeon and research professor named Dr. Per-Ingvar Branemark that was conducting research early on in his career in 1952 with his research team. They were studying how the blood flow affect bone healing within the body. To aid in their research, they included rabbits as test subjects and placed small cameras encased in titanium into their legs to study the healing process. When the research period ended, they attempted to remove the items from the rabbits but to their surprise, the titanium had fused to the bone and was not able to be removed. Dr. Branemark soon realized that the human body can tolerate the long-term presence of titanium and that this discovery could be applied in the mouth where the metal could be used as anchors and act as artificial teeth. As a result, Dr. Branemark took his research team into a completely new direction.
But before this discovery could be acceptable for actual use as Dr. Branemark sees toothlessness as a significant disability, an extensive period of safety testing had to be conducted. The test subjects would have to include humans to confirm that the titanium would not be rejected by the body. Dr. Branemark would enlist twenty of his students in his research lab where they all volunteered to have titanium metal inserted and implanted into their upper arms. And one of these students would happen to be Dr. Tomas Albrektsson, another great Swedish scientist and contributor to the field of implant dentistry. Later, he would be one of my future teachers in my dental implant education which was an extremely fortunate and a rare honor to have.
Titanium used as a dental implant was not approved in the medical field until twenty-five years later. The reason for this is that it is widely known within the medical community that any foreign object or material that is implanted into the body will induce an inflammatory process ultimately leading to the rejection of it. Therefore, there was an ample amount of opposition to Dr. Branemark’s work and his findings for the course of this research on what he eventually named as, “osseointegration”. But over time and after the demonstration and reproduction of one success after another, his work was finally accepted in the medical and dental academic community and was eventually proven to be clinically safe and effective.
Fortunately, this discovery was not only limited to achieving to what is known as the modern dental implant today, but it further spread to other areas of application. Dr. Branemark had also collaborated with ear specialists to creating hearing aids that utilized titanium implants placed and inserted behind the ear. In addition, titanium implants were also used in the facial skeleton to fasten silicone prostheses for individuals with facial deformities acquired congenitally or from injuries and accidents. Another application stemming from titanium implants are the surgical screws used in surgery. These screws, which are now routinely and widely used in hospitals are made from titanium and are used during surgery to securing hard tissue such as bone within the body. One example is using and inserting titanium screws in the femoral stumps which allows the installation of a prosthesis for people with physical disabilities. This gives the individual the ability to walk again and therefore is proven as another life changing procedure. Undoubtedly, Dr. Branemark was fueled by a passion to creating solutions for people with severe limitations and throughout his life’s work and great achievements, has clearly made many things possible not only for the entire population of people in our generation but also in the generations to come. Dr. Branemark is proven to be an innovative genius and a pioneer to helping people achieve life-changing procedures. Dr. Branemark passed away at the age of 85 and helped revolutionize the field of medicine and dentistry. His remarkable achievements were acclaimed around the world, and he was awarded an extensive amount of honorary awards and achievement by numerous institutions and professional societies.
Fortunately, Dr. Branemark life’s work continues and will evolve. Research in this field is and will always continue. What started seventy years ago is now still being improved upon today and many advances since then is making life potentially a lot more enjoyable for everyone at the present time, especially for those who are willing to take advantage of them. What was thought of as being impossible in the past will become a reality in the future (hopefully). With a strong passion, commitment, and hard work to pushing into the right direction, many of the problems and complications that we have at the current time will eventually see an ultimate solution. Being an optimist, I believe that cancer will eventually have a cure, Alzheimer Disease will no longer occur, and even tooth loss will be a thing of the past (or become obsolete). As solutions to some problems will require a lot more time than others to occur, the point is that the possibility will always exist. One-hundred years ago many could not have imagined of the many possibilities that occurs today. So, another one-hundred years from now, who knows what is considered impossible today be entirely possible “tomorrow”.
Author:
Dr. charles chow