Hello, my name is Vin Morgan, and I welcome this opportunity of speaking with you today about the placement of implants in adolescents. Recently, I was asked by an academic oral surgeon whether the Bicon implant was appropriate to place on young people, particularly those young teenagers who have congenitally missing teeth, primarily maxillary or lateral incisors. And at first I thought that his query was unusual because I knew we had been placing implants for over twenty years on such teenagers, without any consideration that they were any different than an adult. Therefore, I said, Sure, we can. Then I went back to check on my statement and looked at the data. Over the past twenty years, we’ve placed approximately eighty two implants in some fifty children, all successfully, I might add. In this video I will show you a couple of cases, that show just how successful we have been. The one thing that we noticed, not in all cases, but in some, after a seven or eight year period, the teenager who’s now in the mid-20s or early 20s have returned and the length of the restored implant is a couple of millimeters shorter than the adjacent natural teeth. Therefore, apparently, the natural teeth continue to erupt, which could present an issue with other implants, but fortunately, with Bicon you simply can remove the abutment, twist and pull it out, and make a new restoration if you will. However, you’ll see in the cases we present this afternoon, all we had to do was to intraorally add one of these indirect composite materials. Our preference is the Shofu material, Ceramage, and voila, the tooth is now the same length as the adjacent teeth with a minimal amount of effort. Hopefully after viewing a couple of our cases, you too will have the confidence of, choosing Bicon and being able to offer to your young patients the ability to have a permanent solution for their congenitally missing, anterior teeth.
