Ridgewood Dental Associates - www.ridgewooddental.com

No more dentures? - The Record Health

By Teresa M. McAleavy

Staff Writer

Hiam Simon had come to accept that he'd have to live with a foul mouth.

Then Simon's dentist made him an offer that gave him a smile he figured he'd eventually be able to show the world: Undergo a relatively new, high-tech procedure developed by Nobel Biocare, a Swedish dental equipment maker with facilities in Mahwah, and walk away with implants and crowns that should last a lifetime.

The techniques is also attracting the interest of dentist, about 20 of whom gathered in Ridgewood on Wednesday to observe as Simon became the first patient to undergo the procedure in Bergen County.

Nobel Biocare's Teeth in an Hour implant procedure is aimed at the estimated 31 million Americans who wear removable dentures and want to ditch soaking them each night and gluing them in each morning. The procedure involves taking an X-ray and a CAT scan of the patient's mouth, then using Nobel's software to produce a three-dimensional image of the jawbone, so that surgeons can virtually fit the implant before the patient is even in the chair. Nobel Biocare's software is then used to make some of the instruments dentists need to, essentially, screw in a new set of teeth.

Because it's done on computer it takes the guesswork out of the placement, said Dr. Kenneth L. Hilsen, a prosthosdontist who let the team operating on Simon. It's a phenomenal new technology because it's accurate to one-tenth of a millimeter.

It also removes the need for several office visits and surgeries, said Hilsen, who studied the procedure at Nobel Biocare's two-year-old Mahwah facility, where some 100 other dentists from across the globe have been trained so far this year.

With this procedure, most of the work is done without the patient being in the chair, said Hilsen, of Ridgewood Dental Associates, where the surgery took place.

Nobel Biocare, which won approval from the Food and Drug Administration for the procedure in 2004, expects to see its market for the procedure grow in coming years.

So far, there's been less than 100 of these procedures done worldwide, said Gerry Molina, an area sales representative for the company who was on hand during Wednesday's implant procedure. We really do expect it to revolutionize full-arch cases.

But not everyone is convinced. Dr. Robert Hersh, a Freehold-based periodontist who is president-elect of the New Jersey Dental Association, said in a telephone interview that some dentists will likely shy away from the technique.

It will make it easier for people who don't want to wear removable dentures, Hersh said. But I don't think it will revolutionize implants because of the skill level required in doing it. Not every dentist will try it.

Those who do can purchase Nobel Biocare's software for about $5,700, Molina said. Training costs about $2,500.

The cost to patients, he said Hilsen said, runs about $35,000 to $40,000. But each believes that in time, it could become more affordable.

I doubt if insurance will ever cover it because it's not their job to give people the best teeth, said Hilsen.

The parts are expensive, but it we can take a process that took six months to a year and cut it down...maybe it will get to the point where the average guy can afford it. We'll have to wait and see.

Traditional implant surgery involved digging out the root and peeling back the gum to expose a patient's jawbone. Implants, or small titanium rods, are then frilled into the bone so they can serve as roots for an artificial tooth or crown. But it can take months for the implant to attach to the bone fibers and for stitches and gums to heal, said Hilsen. And even though that process was improved in recent years, patients still face the kind of wait Simon wanted to avoid.

For a guy who is dental phobic and talks publicly a lot because he's executive director of an educational foundation, Simon, of Cliffside Park, said he couldn't pass up Hilsen's offer. The idea of a fairly quick, fairly pain-free alternative to either living with rotting teeth or the dentures he called unbearably uncomfortable, enticed him to be Hilsen's guinea pig.

It's the perfect solution for me to have it all done at once, said Simon who received anesthesia during the procedure.

I'm so afraid of the dentist that I literally break into a sweat and have to have someone drive me there.

Dr Kenneth Hilsen, Prosthodontist and Makeover Dentist - Providing services in cosmetic dentistry and dental implants to the areas of Ridgewood and Bergen County.