All-on-4 Technique

The All-on-4 technique can be used for patients who are missing all the teeth in their upper or lower jaw. The technique usually uses four, but sometimes five or six implants to support a fixed bridge replacing 10-12 teeth. The implants are sometimes placed at the same time as failing teeth are removed

Typically, the best bone in the jaw lies towards the front; in this technique the implants are positioned towards the front of the jaw, and the back implants are tilted backwards at a 30degree angle to avoid the sinus in the upper jaw, and the nerve supply to the lip in the lower jaw. The technique is extremly useful where there is only limited bone available. This is one of the strategies we use routinely to avoid having to carry out graft surgery.

Our standard approach is to place the implants in the course of a short surgery and at the same time provide a simple 'immediate' resin temporary bridge. This bridge is generally replaced with a more robust definitive bridge 3-6 months later, but sometimes the resin bridge can last much longer than this.

Patients generally leave the practice with their resin bridge in place. This treatment can be made even more comfortable for the patient by using a sophisticated Guided Surgery approach, in which implant positions are predetermined using 3D scanning and special software, such as Nobel Guide or Simplant. Guided surgery allows us to preprepare many aspects of the treatment in advance so that surgery can often be completed in just 30 minutes or so, as the implants are quickly and precisely positioned directly into predetermined positions.