Answers

Answered By: Dental Arts & Wellness

To give you a short answer, I (we) do not know: Is it "possible" to re-use implants? While it is always "possible"there is always a possibility in many thingswhen it comes to whether such practice is "advisable" or "prudent", the answer may be different.
Implants are a bio-material that becomes a part of your body. The parts which are inserted during surgery have undergone strict sterilization and packaging and often not even opened until surgery time. Some parts may have been coated with a material to facilitate biological healing response.
While implant parts often resembles car- or home-repair parts, with appearance of screws, pins, buttons, wrenches, etc., they are surgical materials. Handling of these parts requires absolute asepsis (absence of germs). Unless there is a proven way to restore your used implant back to its original, brand-new, sterile condition (which I am not aware of), I see why your dentist did not re-use your implant.
The bone is a living tissue. It is constantly remodeling every second by 2 types of bone cellsone cleans out (removes) old or injured bone, and other builds up fresh bone. Having an implant in your bone successfully depends on these bone cell activity. As you see, any imbalance between the bone cleaning VS building cells will create undesirable bone support around the implant. Healing is extremely intricate, and an implant needs to have all the right ingredients on its surface to make bone healing happen successfully.