Image-Guided Surgery
What Is Image-Guided Surgery?
We use image-guided or computer-guided surgery to plan and place dental implants precisely, ensuring we insert your implants into exactly the right location at the correct angulation and depth. With this treatment, we can optimise the use of available bone while avoiding essential structures in your jawbone, such as nerves.
When you visit us for dental implants, we will need to take a cone-beam CT scan of your mouth. A cone-beam CT scan produces 3-D images of your mouth, including your jaws and any existing teeth. The actual scan is quick and non-invasive as the scanner travels around you in a matter of seconds. A cone-beam CT scan is also very safe, emitting only low levels of radiation and provides us with far more information than a 2-D digital x-ray.
Our dentist can manipulate these digital images, viewing them from any angle so we can see the amount of bone available for dental implants and where best to place them. Our dentist will plan each implant placement, making sure that once your implants are restored with your crown, bridge or denture, that the restorations look and feel natural, and most importantly that they function properly.
Once we are happy with your treatment plan, we create a computer-generated surgical guide, a special type of template for use during your actual surgery. The template will guide our implant dentist, so they can easily replicate the treatment plan exactly, placing each implant in the correct position, and that the right depth and angulation.
Ensuring You Receive a More Comfortable Experience
We carry out this planning process entirely behind-the-scenes so that when you come to have your implant surgery, the actual procedure is shorter and quicker. Because we know exactly where to locate each implant, placement is faster, and there is less risk of complications. The overall procedure should feel more comfortable, and healing is quicker with fewer side-effects such as swelling. Placing a single dental implant may take as little as an hour to complete
We precisely plan every implant treatment using image-guided surgery regardless of whether you need a single dental implant or multiple implants. Image-guided surgery is especially important when planning and placing more complex dental implant cases and allows us to provide you with an optimal treatment outcome.
