Clinical Case report “Patent zirconia implant” by Dr. Harald Fahrenholz (Austria)

Curriculum vitae

Dr. Harald Fahrenholz was born in Königssee, Bavaria, at 19.11.1949
After his education at the University of Mainz he worked 25 years in his own office in Grünwald near Munich. Later he worked together with Prof. Rolf Ewers at the CMF Clinic in Vienna. Since 2007 he is working in his own office at the Zahnästhetik am Kohlmarkt. He was influenced by teachers like Dr. Peter Kraus, P. K. Thomas, Charles Stewart, Dr. Axel Bauer, Dr. Alexander Gutowski and Lorenzo Vanini.
Subsequently in implantology Dr. Axel Kirsch, Prof. Per-Ingvar Brånemark,

Prof. Ulf Lekholm (CTC Courses at the Brånemark Clinic, Gothenburg), Prof. Rolf Ewers, Dr. Johan Feith and Dr. Ulrich Volz

His main emphasis is the metal-free and biologic dentistry in implantology and prosthodontics.

Introduction

This case demonstrate the prosthetic flexibility of zirconia implants and show that it can replace titanium implants also for full arch rehabilitations.

Health awareness among our patients has resulted in an increasing demand for metal free implant treatments. Thanks to my friendship with Drs Johan Feith I was introduced to Zirconia implants in general and especially the ZV-3 system, now called the Patent implant system. I started to use the system in 2008. To evaluate the clinical performance of the system I made a retrospective evaluation of my own patients between 2009 and 2015 together with Dr Sofia Karapataki from Athens.

The follow up was about 114 Patent implants. Our clinical survival rate was 97,6 % and no fractures were reported for this period. Implant loss was related to bone augmentation cases, sinus lifts or immediate placements. Until today I have placed 700 Patent implants and I have experienced only three fractures, all two-piece implants. In hindsight, all of them were caused by incorrect prosthetic design. We saw no detachments or fractures of the glass fiber posts. So, my results correlate very well with what has been reported by Becker et al. 2017 and Brüll et al. 2014.

In both studies they also report on the favorable soft tissue response. Brüll et al. even state that the soft tissue response is favorable compared to titanium implants. I can confirm this since I have not yet seen any case of peri-implantitis associated with these implants. In this case report I would like to demonstrate the prosthetic flexibility of the Patent implant system and show that it can replace titanium implants also for full arch rehabilitations.