| Summary: | Today, dental implants are used to support all different kinds of restorations (fixed vs removable, single-tooth replacement vs partial or full-arch restorations). As a consequence, pre-operative diagnostics are considered to be the foundation of a precise as well as a restoration driven implant placement. Intra-operatively, surgical stents and other visual aids are routinely used to transfer the planned 3-dimensional implant position into the surgical field. However, traditional surgical templates are mostly used to re-check drilling steps and the finally established implant position only on a visual basis. Therefore, local anatomic conditions (bone defects, etc.), limited surgical skills, or simply a poor visual judgement may still lead to a compromised implant positioning. In contrast, a real guided implant surgery relates to a new generation of surgical template and offers a precise transfer of the planned implant position into the surgical field. Thereby, pre-operative planning and production of surgical templates are either model based (for single-tooth and small partial cases) or computer generated (long-span partial and edentulous cases). Overall, guided implant surgery reduces chairside time, morbidity, post-operative pain and swelling, and may also offer a flap-less surgical approach or an immediate restoration protocol. Hence, guided implant surgery may also be considered as a next level in quality assurance. This lecture discusses todays different options using either model based or CT-derived templates for guided implant surgery.
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