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If you spend much time on social media, you may have run across videos like this one, boldly declaring that a company has “discovered how to REGROW your teeth!” But it’s not really news. Scientists have been working on this kind of thing for decades. It’s just that one team has moved a little closer to the goal with a drug currently in Phase 1 of its first trial, which is focused on evaluating its safety.
For now, the usual options for replacing missing teeth remain: bridges, partials, and implants. Of the three, implants are the closest thing you can get to your natural teeth.
Even then, you have options: Traditional titanium implants or ceramic. Here at the Holistic Dental Center of New Jersey, we place only ceramic dental implants for a number of good – and important – reasons.
Zirconia: The Biocompatible Choice for Implants & Other Dental Work
Specifically, the implants we use are made of zirconia, which is a type of ceramic made from a mineral called zirconium dioxide. Zirconia is exceptionally strong and durable, even under the heavy, regular forces of biting and chewing.
It’s also broadly biocompatible and integrates smoothly with both bone and gum tissue, promoting healthy healing after dental procedures.
Zirconia is also the better option aesthetically, as its color and translucence are more like that of natural teeth. Restorations and prosthetics made with this material blend seamlessly with the rest of the smile. Their smooth surfaces resist plaque better, as well.
Because of this, zirconia has a wide range of uses in dentistry. In our office, we commonly use it for inlays, onlays, and crowns, as well as implants.
Of course, you also get all the benefits of those implants being metal-free. The titanium alloys commonly used for traditional implants can corrode over time, releasing metal particles in the body that can aggravate inflammation and potentially cause local or systemic health issues.
Zirconia implants, on the other hand, are non-allergenic; nor do they conduct electricity or heat, eliminating the risk of creating galvanic currents. Thanks to the material’s excellent biocompatibility, patients often experience an easier post-op recovery, aided and abetted by our use of PRF and ozone during implant surgery to promote quick, uneventful healing.
Some evidence even suggests that more natural bone is retained when ceramic implants are used – something that can enhance their stability, longevity, and overall success.
But don’t just take our word for it.
Zirconia Dental Implants for the Win
A study published last year in Cureus directly compared titanium, ceramic, and zirconia implants to each other in terms of both their mechanical and aesthetic qualities.
Thirty implants of each type were machine tested to see how well they could resist being pulled apart without breaking, how well they could flex under pressure, and how well they could withstand repeated stress, such as the pressure of chewing, without breaking down over time. Their resistance to cracking or breaking under strong, sudden forces (biting down on an unpopped kernel of popcorn, for instance) was also evaluated.
To evaluate each material’s aesthetic qualities, such as color stability and translucency, the researchers applied staining solutions and took measurements with a device called a spectrophotometer. The biocompatibility of each was analyzed, as well
Zirconia turned out to be the hardest material and the best at not changing shape under pressure, while titanium did better in terms of tensile strength and holding up under long-term stress. Plain ceramic just didn’t compare to either.
Aesthetically, though, zirconia was found to have several advantages, including resisting staining. It also had the smoothest surface. While ceramic proved to be the most translucent – and, thus, the most like natural tooth enamel – zirconia was still found to be more than acceptable.
Overall, zirconia was found to have the most favorable aesthetic qualities compared to the other two materials.
Between this and the other virtues mentioned above, is it really any wonder why our patients prefer zirconia implants, as well?
