Trauma to anterior implants
Recently, three case reports have described trauma to
anterior implants, which implies that there had been an
earlier trauma to the maxillary incisors, where the
traumatised tooth or teeth had been replaced with one
or two implants (6–8). The question is what happens to
the surrounding tissues and the implants if there were
another trauma episode in the same region? To date,
there is very little information in the scientific literature
as to what happens when there is trauma to implants.
Such lack of information prevents us from drawing
general conclusions (6, 7). It is not even known how
bending or a fracture of the titanium or ceramic
implant will affect the outcome of treatment. Other
unknown factors are how this new trauma will affect
the cost of treatment and the type of therapy in the
future. Allen & Allen (7) showed in a case that the force
applied to the implant probably results in bone fracture,
which is potentially a very serious outcome of trauma
to an implant. Flanagan (8) showed in another case
that the impact force caused no apparent damage to the
bone, the implant or its components except abutment
screw loosening. Prevention of trauma to implants
would seem to be important as the consequences of
such injuries are not well known and the costs are likely
to be high.