Description

The ideal goal of the modern dentistry is to restore the patient oral cavity to normal contour, function, comfort, aesthetics, speech and health. The clinical replacement of lost natural teeth by osseointegrated implants has reported revolutionary advancement in dentistry.Initially, the implants were restored with standard-diameter abutments because of the lack of matching prosthetic components. Contrary to what was expected, post-loading radiographic evaluations showed no changes in the crestal bone levels around those implants.Later came the concept of a successful implant in terms of bone loss around an implant restoration, which after the accepted crestal bone loss of no more than 1.5mm during the first year after placement should be no more than 0.2mm during each subsequent year. In an attempt to improve long term bone maintenance around implants, a new implant-to-abutment connection referred to as "Platform Switching" has been proposed.