Guided innovations: Robot-assisted dental implant surgery

Abstract

Dental implants have become the preferred treatment modality for the replacement of missing teeth. The success of implant therapies is dependent on the precision of the implant placement to effectively support prosthetic outcomes that optimize form and function. With the evolution of static surgical guidance over the last several decades, implant placement protocols have taken enormous strides toward ensuring accurate placement of dental implant fixtures, yet limitations persist in the overall workflow due to the rigid adherence to the proposed positioning of implants. Emerging digital technologies show the potential for dynamic real-time clinical guidance during implant placement, and robot-assisted dental implant placement is a novel form of dynamic surgical guidance that, in addition to visual navigation, offers haptic guidance for implant treatment planning, osteotomy preparation, and implant placement. This video article discusses robotic dental implant placement and includes case studies and quantitative accuracy analysis for prosthetically driven planning and immediate placement of single-tooth dental implant replacement.