Maintenance Phase in Implant Dentistry

Although successful and prevalent, implant treatment is still a costly and time-consuming procedure. With more patients receiving implant treatment and more implants in function, peri-implantitis has become a global burden. Numerous studies have reported the prevalence rate of peri-implant mucositis and peri-implantitis to be 20–65% and 1–47%, respectively (Barootchi and Wang, Int J Oral Implantol (Berl) 14(3):263–282, 2021). There are no specific and evidence-based protocols for treating peri-implant diseases with predictable outcomes. Therefore, the development of the diseases and the inability to treat them in the early stages is most likely to result in implant failure. Implant failure result in undesirable economic and psychological outcomes for patients because reconstruction of the infected area and re-installing the implants call for complicated treatment phases. Nevertheless, as convincingly reported by researchers, if patients observing the hygienic protocols efficiently prevent the risks and they can follow a regular maintenance plan along with their clinicians, prolonged stable healthy peri-implant tissues is an accessible goal. As a result, the most pivotal, logical, effective, and predictable procedure to guarantee the implant health is to manage regular follow-ups for the early diagnosis of any complications and to address them as affordably and immediately as possible. After finishing the implant treatment, most clinicians appear to either lack any recorded and clear-cut plan to run individualized maintenance sessions or the rapport they should establish with patients to successfully conduct the maintenance sessions. Therefore, the chapter is dedicated to defining the implant health and peri-implant disease, introducing the examination of peri-implant tissues, the risk factors in implant success, the critical factors in planning individualized maintenance sessions along with the required treatment measures, and the homecare requirements to observe oral hygiene.