The Comprehensive Guide to All-On-4® Dental Implants

What Are All-On-4® Implants And What’s The Role Of Prosthodontists In Dental Restoration?

It was in 1988 that the concept originated when Dr. Paulo Malo successfully treated a patient with what’s now known as the All-On-4® dental implant treatment concept. Since its first successful implementation, over 3,500 dentists across the US – including our own Dr. Darian Kaar, DDS, of the All On 4 Dental Implant Center, Dallas Forth Worth – have followed in the footsteps of Dr. Malo.

All-On-4® implant specialists are highly trained. They have an extensive clinical record in mastering dental restorations and facial issues that involve restoring missing jaw and teeth through treatments such as the All-On-4® dental treatment concept, crowns, dentures, bridges, dental implants, TMJ/TMD, and others. These specialists are called Prosthodontists.

Prosthodontists – The Master Builders Of The Smile

Prosthodontists are dentists and specialize in the area of Prosthodontics. Often referred to as the “master builders of the smile,” they are highly-trained specialists with years of experience devoted to additional training on the road to becoming dental restoration specialists and executing the dental treatment concept of the All-On-4® dental implant system.

What’s The All-On-4® Concept?

The technique and innovations that form the basis of the cutting-edge All-On-4® dental implant treatment concept are considered the best solution for full-arch treatment utilizing tilted implants.

The marketplace offers various imitation treatment concepts that vie to compare or compete with the All-On-4® treatment concept. But none have the documented scientific research based on large-scale use to match the groundbreaking innovation of the All-On-4® implant system for teeth replacement.

Main Features of The All-On-4® Treatment Concept

The All-On-4® treatment concept has multiple features that offer clear advantages and make it popular as the number one choice for restoring oral health, smile, and confidence.

1. A) Compared To Conventional Dental Implants It Is Cost-Efficient

Traditional dental implants can cost two to three times more than All-On-4® implants. But the All-On-4® treatment concept, refined using the latest dental advances along with its full-arch restoration capability – uses only four implants.

Unlike traditional implants, in which every dental prosthetic needs its own implant, the All-On-4® enables the replacement of an entire arch comprising of 16 teeth with just four implants. These implants are embedded strategically – two implants in the rear tilted at 45-degree angles and two straight anterior dental implants in the front – to take advantage of regions that naturally have more bone. These four dental implants give support to a prosthetic bridge: or arch on which your artificial teeth are attached.

1. B) Graftless Dental Solution

When bone depth is acceptable for a conventional implantation procedure, a bone grafting procedure will be required. Bone grafts increase cost and recovery time and can also be quite surgically invasive. However, the All-On-4® treatment concept helps you avoid a grafting procedure in most cases as the posterior implants are placed at a 45-degree angle.

In a traditional implant procedure, the healing process following a bone graft can take 3 months or longer. But the All-On-4® treatment technique eliminates this whole ordeal for most patients and enables you to exit surgery with a full set of new, shining, and healthy teeth.

1. C) Shorter Treatment Time Helps You Smile In A day

If you opt and are found suitable for the All-On-4® dental implant treatment method, you often receive a brand new smile on the same day of the procedure. Such a swift result is possible because of a streamlined implantation procedure that utilizes only four dental implants per arch.

Dental technology advances also enable dental clinics or dental labs to fabricate the teeth even as Dr. Kaar and his dental specialists prepare your jaw and mouth for implant placement. All-On-4® helps you to return to full-functionality with a beautiful smile when you leave the All On 4 Dental Implant Center.

1. D) Lifetime Lasting Potential of All-On-4 Dental Implants

Your All-On-4® dental implants can often function for a lifetime. They will not fall out accidentally and also look completely natural. Most important of all: the All-On-4® treatment concept lays the foundation for improving your dental health by preventing jaw bone loss or bone absorption.

Beginning The Journey With All-On-4® Dental Implants

A major draw of All-On-4® dental implants is speedy implementation. Most patients can receive load-bearing prosthetics in a single sitting, and the whole All-On-4® implant surgical procedure can often be accomplished in one day.

 However, making a decision about All-On-4® dental implants brings hope but can also be confusing. While All-On-4® implants are simple as a concept – four implants support a whole arch of brand new teeth – the process for getting the dental implants can puzzle a patient.

To deal with the confusion about the process, patients should take some steps before the implant operation, placement, and fitting of their All-On-4® implants. The preoperative process is vital in determining the success of an All-On-4® treatment procedure.

Before receiving All-On-4® dental implants, patients also need to undergo a preliminary evaluation to find out their suitability for the procedure. The evaluation is critical as it evaluates a patient’s functional and aesthetic requirements, involves a physical examination, and, if required, embarks on preoperative and preparatory dental work.

At the All On 4 Dental Implant Center, Dr. Darian Kaar recommends that while patients feel excited in receiving their beautiful set of brand new teeth in a single day, the following vital steps are important for his patient’s safety, health, and for quality control reasons. We give a lot of emphasis on preparation to enable our patients to have a seamless and comfortable dental experience and achieve perfect results.

Initial Steps For Receiving All-On-4® Dental Implants

Preliminary Consultation

A crucial first step in every dental patient’s All-On-4® journey is an initial consultation. This interaction is similar to a mutual interview to establish the objectives and form a professional connection between the patient and the doctor.

At the All On 4 Dental Implant Center in Dallas Fort Worth, we treat and value each of our All-On-4® patients like our extended dental family. We offer our full support from the beginning of the All-On-4® procedure till you receive your final prosthesis. So the initial consultation is an efficient way to know our doctors and staff, review procedure options, discuss potential obstacles, and get answers to possible doubts and questions.

Oral Examination of The Patient

Your initial consultation is usually followed up with a comprehensive medical examination. While the initial dental consultation’s focus is on patients and their needs and desires, the oral examination enables the dental staff to know your present oral and dental condition. Knowing about your existing conditions is important for formulating a customized treatment plan for your situation. The oral examination also provides Dr. Kaar and his staff the information required to come up with an All-On-4® plan to produce the best outcome results.

Diagnostic imaging, including 3D computed tomography (CT) scans and x-rays, form a vital component of the oral examination. The data generated has a direct impact on the patient’s individualized treatment plans and helps give direction to the planning and execution of the implantation procedure.

Designing Mock-Ups

Through in-house fabrication equipment, specialized imaging technology, and the information gathered during the initial consultation and professional dental exam, we produce physical or digital mock-ups of each patient’s All-On-4® prosthetic.

Mock-ups enable patients to see what their new teeth will appear like and offer both the dentist and the patient an opportunity to study options, and if needed, make adjustments. During this process, oral exams and dental impressions may be required.

Mockups also provide our dental team a quick, cost-effective way to visualize a patient’s All-On-4® dental implants and fine-tune the treatment plan before the placement procedure begins in earnest.

Pre-operative Preparation

Some patients may need preparatory dental work before receiving their All-On-4® dental implants. Pre-operative tasks can include dental extractions of remaining teeth, a bone graft, preparation of the underlying bone to receive the dental implants, and cleaning of extraction sites. Typically, edentulous patients may not be required to go through extensive preoperative work.

Pre-operative Planning Key To Successful All-On-4® Dental Implants

The All On Four Dental Implant Center in Dallas Fort Worth, in the hands of the highly-skilled Dr. Darian Kaar, has the capability and experience to provide All-On-4® dental implants in a single day, including devising, execution, and placing the final fitting.

But we know the importance of pre-operative planning and its role in the overall success of an All-On-4® implant procedure. We never take any shortcuts at the preparatory stage because an implant placed even the tiniest bit out of place or off-axis can lead to failed implementation.

Therefore, deep preoperative planning enables Dr. Kaar and his team to plan precisely where each implant will be placed to maximize the stability and strength of the All-On-4® prosthesis.

The above four steps remove any confusion and help our patients to receive a comfortable and seamless All-On-4® experience with long-lasting results.

All-On-4® Is An Cost-Effective Long-Term Oral Health Investment

The All-On-4® dental implant procedure can be cost-effective. However, when you are budgeting for this dental procedure, be careful to consider the cost of the procedure and also associated expenses including maintenance, follow-up appointments, repairs and replacements, productive time lost during recovery, and auxiliary procedures.

The above approach is called the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) way to cost a procedure. But many patients commit a mistake by comparing only the “sticker price” for tooth replacement strategies but neglect or forget to appropriate the related long-term costs. And when you are formulating the best teeth-replacement strategy, omitting such costs can invite unrequired financial burden.

To give an example, some patients falter in considering the traditional dental implants or All-On-4® due to contrasting price head-to-head with other procedures like acrylic dentures. They don’t realize that acrylic dentures must be replaced pretty regularly – sometimes every two or three years – while a professionally executed implant procedure can offer an attractive and lifetime solution. Many patients, after a few rounds of replacing uncomfortable, ill-fitting, acrylic dentures, often agree that dental implants make more financial sense.

On the flip side, a patient seeking to cut costs may be tempted to choose inexpensive implants from a dental clinic or chain offering attractive discounts. But such patients fail to consider that if the implant fails due to poor execution or improper placement by the dentist – owing to lack of skill, experience, or both – the total cost of reparative dental work will end up costing the patient significantly more than what they would have initially saved.

If evaluated as per the prism of Life Cycle Costs, the All-On-4® implants are an excellent long-term solution for a long-term problem: to have your natural teeth replaced with functional, permanent teeth that can last a lifetime. View your teeth as an investment, which may be more expensive in the short-term, but pays off handsomely over time, and the dividends are quality teeth, beautiful smile, and a more vibrant lifestyle.

Benefits of All-On-4® Dental Implants

All-On-4® dental implants are popular and appealing for patients because they offer resilience and longevity without all the expense and labor of conventional dental implants.

Traditional implants need each replacement tooth to be supported by its own implant. And for patients going through full-mouth rehabilitation, it can mean a total of 32 implants! But All-On-4® dental implants reduce the number of implants needed to replace the full set of teeth.

Opting for the All-On-4® treatment plan means only four implants per arch are needed to hold all 32 teeth – and that’s an 800% reduction in implants needed to get the job done! It also means a significant reduction in recovery time, costs, and surgical time.

Moreover, some dental patients will not be fitted with conventional implants without first undergoing painful and costly bone grafting procedures. But with All-On-4® dental implants, you can avoid this expensive extra step – further reducing life cycle costs.

All-On-4 Teeth Replacement Method Has Many Advantages

1. Cost-Effective

Since only four implants are needed for each jaw for your new replacement teeth, the total cost of the procedure comes down. However, the final cost is determined by adding up costs such as the quality of final restorations, the use of bone grafting, removal of existing teeth, and the type of anesthesia preferred by the patient during the surgery.

All-On-4® also offers flexibility in price – depending on the grade and quality of the chosen final restorations. So at the All On 4 Dental Implant Center in Dallas Fort Worth, we work with our patients to help create the best smile at a budget that our patient can afford.

You can save even more if All-On-4® is used for full teeth reconstruction as this technique uses less number of procedures (less surgical interventions), is less time-consuming (less of the surgeon’s time), and takes up less recovery time compared to placing conventional individual implants.

To go into details, All-On-4® implants need only four implants per arch or a total of eight implants to replace all teeth. In traditional individual implants used for a similar full mouth reconstruction procedure, your dentist would need an astounding 32 implants – four times more than All-On-4® implants.

Furthermore, in a conventional approach, every tooth needs not only its own implant, but also its crown. And when you total the cost of placing 32 individual implants, the number is far more than what one could expect from All-On-4® dental implants.

However, All-On-4® implants will also cost more than the average denture. In conventional implants, your dentures don’t need surgery and are mass-produced with minimal customizability. But dentures are nowhere near close to providing the same level of benefits that implant-based teeth replacement solutions provide dental patients seeking durable replacement teeth.

Reduced Surgical Scope

Many patients, due to concern for safety or health reasons, don’t want to opt for invasive surgery. However, All-On-4® dental implants will give you a full-mouth replacement solution with the least surgical intervention.

Instead of penetrating the bone and tissue of the mouth for each tooth, the All-On-4® technique dramatically reduces the number of implants required – and the result is less surgery, discomfort, and pain. Moreover, the implants enable most patients to skip the bone grafting procedure.

All-On-4® Reduces Need For Bone Grafting Procedure

To be successful, your dental implants must firmly anchor into the underlying jawbone and enabled to osseointegrate. Thus, dental patients who don’t have adequate jaw bone density, depth, or overall bone health must first go through a bone grafting procedure prior to receiving their individual implants.

Bone grafts need that bony material to be taken out from one part of the patient’s body, usually the hips, and put under the soft tissues where jaw bone depth is supposed to be insufficient. The grafted bone is then given time to heal and osseointegrate so that it can lay a firm foundation for future implants.

Since a bone graft procedure is a significant surgical intervention, recovering from a grafting procedure lasts between two weeks and three months – depending on the extent of the bone loss in the jaw. But if All-On-4® dental implants are used, patients can usually skip bone grafts.

In the All-On-4® treatment, four implants per arch are purposefully placed in areas of the mouth where the bone is naturally denser and deeper. Two implants are placed in the front of the jaw and two more in the rear of the jaw.

One of the breakthrough advances of the All-On-4® treatment method is the angle of the rear implants – to take advantage of naturally denser and deeper bone in the back of a patient’s mouth. And when the implants are combined with the All-On-4® bridge, they provide the essential stability and support for your full set of brand new teeth.

Treatment Offers Faster Healing Time

The All-on-4® concept is scientifically proven and documented and is supported by good outcomes based on clinical studies carried out over a decade – indicating favorable results upon use.

One of the major advantages the dental restoration method offers is that your replacement arch can be attached to the dental implants right after insertion. Speed is one of the most appealing pros of choosing All-On-4® dental implants. Many patients can undergo surgery and get set with temporary All-On-4® implants in a single day.

So patients can wholly remake and reshape their smile in just one dental appointment! Indeed, they require a follow-up appointment for the final restorations and for essential adjustments to ensure a perfect fit.

Compared to choosing full mouth reconstruction using conventional implants, All-On-4® dental implants are more streamlined and not only reduce surgery time but also the possibility of complications post-surgery.

Patients should remember that with All-On-4® dental implants, your Prosthodontist needs to place a total of eight dental implants – at most – and the implants are ready for use immediately. But, replacing a full set of teeth through traditional implants needs 32 individual implantation procedures and involves significantly more time in the dental chair.

Dazzling Appearance

All-On-4® dental implants offer remarkable dental aesthetics in the marketplace. Similar to high-end traditional dentures, the All-On-4® prosthetic can be personalized to suit each patient’s wants and needs at an affordable price.

Using materials such as acrylic and titanium enable excellent aesthetics to a dental patient.

Patients can also opt for more expensive materials like all-zirconia, which is more durable and as well as aesthetic. Such is the advancement in the technique that today customized bridgework that’s hand-crafted for individual patients blurs the line between high-end custom art and functional industrial design.

Factors That Influence The Price of All-On-4® Dental Implants

Since All-On-4® dental implants are not created equal, be vigilant of advertising that shows one price fits all. Several factors impact the final price for your implants, and they are given below:

• Number of teeth to be extracted: it has minimal impact on the overall price

• Sufficient bone for dental implant: if there’s insufficient bone for the implant, a bone graft is needed to build up the bone, and this procedure can significantly raise the costs of dental implants.

• Whether implants are needed for the lower, upper jaw, or both jaws

• 4 CT Scan: the scan, whose cost is minimal, is often highly recommended

• Method of sedation: general anesthesia, oral, or intravenous. Oral sedation is the

least expensive, the cost for intravenous (IV) sedation is higher, and general anesthesia is the most costly.

• The level of dental implant surgery needed:

1. A) Level 1: If you have the acceptable level bone in your jaw to place dental implants, and usually, 80 to 85% of patients fit into this category.

1. B) Level 2: If you have an acceptable level bone or large-sized upper sinuses. It will result in more costs, and about 5 to 10% of patients fit into this category.

1. C) Level 3: If you don’t have quality bone for the implants. This level increases the cost significantly and applies to about 3 to 5% of dental patients.

Patient wants same-day teeth

Final restorations

You can consider several options to receive your final teeth – from the more expensive zirconia and titanium to the less expensive titanium variety and acrylic resin teeth.

If cost is the deciding factor, then an acrylic resin is usually more cost-effective. And if it isn’t, zirconia is a reliable option. Nevertheless, the availability of options will help you get the best possible restorations.

Now you know every important detail on how to go about receiving your All-on-4® dental implants. So if you or someone in your family wants to get their teeth replaced, please call the All on 4 Dental Implant Center in Dallas Fort Worth at (214)-237-0553

The Board-certified and highly-skilled Prosthodontist Dr. Darian Kaar and his experienced dental staff will interact with you, and provide all the helpful information about the innovative All-on-4® dental implant system.

A Fellow of the American College of Prosthodontists, Dr. Darian Kaar holds a degree in Prosthodontics and a Master’s of Science degree in Dentistry and has carried out many dental restorations using All-on-4® treatment concept and helped restore the appearance and function of his patients’ teeth at affordable rates.

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