Award for KGMU's dental implant techs

The Prosthodontics department of the King George's Medical University (KGMU) has developed two techniques that reduce the time of dental implants and makes them durable, less painful and also reduce chances of infection.

The techniques were conferred first and second prize for the year 2021 by the Indian Prosthodontics Society on Thursday.

Dental implant surgery is a procedure that replaces tooth roots with screw-like posts and then places an artificial tooth that looks and functions like a real one.

The first prize of Rs 1 lakh has been conferred for the technique developed by Prof Balendra Pratap Singh and junior resident Dr Shahid A. Shah.


According to Prof Singh, "We sterilised the bone gums of implant site after removing the decayed tooth with ultraviolet rays instead of traditional disinfectant, and then fixed the metal post. The process reduced the rate of degeneration of jaw bone by restricting accumulation of bacteria. As a result, the implant stayed for a longer period with less chances of infection."

The technique was successfully tried in 2017 on 80 patients who were observed for over a year in follow ups.

The usual side effects -- infection, injury or damage, pain, numbness and tingling in gums and lips -- were substantially less in these patients in comparison to those in whom implant was done without UV treatment.


"Post implant, often, the jawbone degenerates by 2mm, but in our technique the degeneration was not over 0.75mm," he said.

The study based on this technique, 'Bio and Prosthetic Impact of Platelet Rich Plasma and Ultraviolet Rays on Tooth Implant' was published in the journal of Indian Prosthodontics Society this year.

The technique which got the second prize of Rs 75,000 was developed by Prof Kaushlendra Singh and junior resident Dr Puran Chand.


The study was titled 'A randomized controlled trial for evaluation of bone density changes around immediate functionally and non-functionally loaded implants using 3D CBCT'.

"In the traditional method, no gap is left between the implanted tooth and natural teeth over or below it. The other teeth put pressure on the implanted tooth, hence, after fixation of metal post, patients had to wait for 4-6 months for it to be firmly installed in position before putting the crown cap over it," explained Prof Kaushlendra Singh.

"In our technique successfully tried on 80 patients in 2018, we kept a gap of 0.44mm between the implanted tooth and teeth vertically above or below. Since there was no pressure on the implanted tooth, it allowed us to cap the metal post with a crown soon after the surgery. Follow up of the patients for over a year revealed that the site healed faster and implant was firm," he said.-IANS