Dr. Sammy Noumbissi, founder and president of the International Academy of Ceramic Implantology (IAOCI), is currently organizing the academy’s 11th World Congress, to be hosted in Washington, D.C. (USA) from May 19 to 21. Recently in San Diego, Paul Delgado, Director International Sales and Education at Zircon Medical Management, had the chance to chat with the Maryland-based expert on metal-free full-arch reconstruction about the challenges with current ceramic implants, the impact that the upcoming 9-year prospective study on two-piece Patent™ Implants has on evidence-based implant dentistry, and what people can expect from the upcoming IAOCI World Congress this coming May.
Dr. Noumbissi, as president and founder of the IAOCI, are you starting to see any differentiation between the existing ceramic implants on the market?
What are the areas that need to be addressed by our industry in order to make ceramic implants mainstream?
What concern, if any, do you have with the ceramic implant systems that are currently on the market? Have you seen any promising technology?
The Patent™ technology, and I’ve seen others try to do the same with less success, has this unique glass fiber post, which underlines the fundamental effort of the developers to fully understand the materials that they are working with. I’ve seen some of the Patent™ competitors try to have a ceramic abutment go into a ceramic implant, but this resulted in a lot of fractures and catastrophic prosthetic failures. Why? Because you have a small stiff piece going into a big stiff piece, which results in a lot of stress and frequent breakage. When it comes to the prosthetic connection, we know that we cannot take ceramic and have something with the same properties attached to it. A material has to be used in conjunction with ceramic that’s going to take mechanical stress for a very long time and away from the implant. The glass fiber post of the Patent™ Dental Implant System seems to be a great solution, because it has a certain flexibility to it. As a result, stress and force are not transferred to the implant. This is the reason why Zircon Medical has recorded very few implant or abutment fractures. Having said that, I would rather have a glass fiber abutment fracture, which is very easy to remove and replace versus a piece of ceramic abutment fractured within the implant; unfortunately in such cases it is much easier but more traumatic to remove the implant altogether.