Fifty-five million teeth, according to the American Dental Association, will be lost this year due to infection, gum disease or accident.

As a result, the victims of these lost teeth face short- and long-term consequences; remaining teeth that shift, rotate and become crooked; bad bites and difficulties in chewing food properly; and unsightly spaces that undermine their appearance.

Dentures, for many, are not the answer. In many cases, dentures slip causing sore spots, limit the foods that can be eaten, and don't look like natural teeth.

As a result of these factors and a number of recent technological breakthroughs, Dr. Notis have seen a dramatic increase among their patients in the use of dental implants. Implants offer patients a second chance for teeth that look and feel natural. They replace the form and function of missing teeth and support replacement teeth in the same way a root supports a natural tooth.

Implants can either support dentures so they stay in the mouth and will not shift or fall out, or replace them with permanent "teeth." Implants also keep the bone stressed and stimulated, preventing eventual bone loss. The long use of dentures, meanwhile, leads to bone atrophy and, over a number of years, a "caved in" appearance around the jaw line.

Computer-assisted technology has taken much of the guesswork out of implant surgery and, as a result, offers patients a number of significant benefits. It allows dentists to do virtual surgery long before the patient is prepped for surgery. This means all the planning can occur before the procedure starts. A catscan of the patient's mouth is taken, put on a floppy disk and inserted into the computer. This allows the dentist to see the anatomy and height and width of the bone and to rotate the angulation so they can pinpoint the placement of the implants to maximize their success.

The computer-assisted system also allows specialists to measure the exact degree of the proposed implant. This is important because the odds of a successful implant decrease if the angle exceeds 30 degrees. Since the dentist no longer has to evaluate and determine a strategy at the time of the procedure, time can be reduced by as much as a third.

This is one of the reasons why dentists can now offer single-stage implants to about a third of their patients (typically those where implants are adjacent to natural teeth). This means that only procedure need be performed - rather than two separate ones - making only three or four patient visits necessary from implantation to attachment of the replacement teeth.

The material used today for implants has also made the procedure more dependable. The use of titanium and materials made from variations of it last longer and greatly increase the likelihood of osseointegration - connection of the implant to the bone.