Development of a new endosseous dental implant. Part II: Human studies.

The development of an endosseous implant has followed a logical and formal plan. 1. Extensive experiments with animals provided preliminary statistics of successful function, extensive histologic studies, evaluation of biocompatibility, and a preliminary assessment of contraindications. 2. Carefully developed and controlled clinical study of human subjects with frequent examinations and detailed records of both successes and failures again provided new bases for contraindications. The statistics on the clinical study are satisfactory in their results, although they should be regarded as having a somewhat conservative slant. This is because implant failures became a learning base for improved procedures. The program so far has been limited to a single implant design that, with size variants, will serve most applications. However, it is not feasible to modify the design in terms of dimensions for application in the anterior portion of the mouth. A design for this purpose is established on paper and will become a future additional development.