Eric Rompen: Soft tissue health and stability - how to achieve

Stable and healthy soft tissue conditions are important for the longevity of implant restorations and crucial for their esthetic success especially in the esthetic region. Dr Rompen is reviewing aspects of the biological width and gingival biotypes and is discussing important influencing factors on gingival health and stability, such as material biocompatibility, soft tissue augmentation, implant and abutment design, and prosthetic procedures. Either tissue level implant design or bone level implants with the one-abutment-one-time concept are soft tissue friendly procedures. Titanium and Zirconoxide abutment materials show highest biocompatibilty. To support the biological width and gingival stability it is important to have sufficient soft tissue volume around the implant and sufficient keratinized gingiva, if needed by tissue augmentation with connective tissue grafts. Platfom shift implant and adequate concave abutment emergence profile design can further incresase the soft tissue volume. Prosthetic procedures need to take into account that around implants there is no attached but rather adhering gingiva, to which e.g. cementation procedures, retraction cords etc can be detrimental. In case of delayed implant placement, e.g for patients being too young for implant treatment, Dr Rompen presents a clinical procedure how to maintain the tissue volume, based on non-resorbable osseoconductive hydroxyapatite fillers and connective tissue graft procedures.