Don’t Light Up: Smoking Increases the Risk of Dental Implant Failure
Smoking is risky business when it comes to your health.
When you think about it, your mouth is the first on the path of negative effects caused by smoking. It can lead to tooth staining, gum disease, tooth loss, bone loss, and even oral cancer. We are now finding that it also increases the risk of implant failure and postoperative infection.
Recently, a systematic review shows that smoking increases your chance of implant failure. The review defined smokers as patients who smoked a minimum of 1 cigarette per day, and implant failure as the complete loss of the implant. The reviewers assessed the outcomes for implant failure, postoperative infection and marginal bone loss. Through clinical trials, 60,464 implants were placed in non-smokers with a 3.18% failure rate and 19,836 implants were placed in smokers with a 6.35% failure rate. Smokers experienced not only a higher failure rate, but also a higher postoperative infection and bone loss rate.*
If you are a candidate for implants, help minimize complications and failures by ensuring you are in good health and by following some simple guidelines.
1. If you smoke, try to quit completely. If you need help, talk to your medical care provider about different options or programs that might work for you.
2. Follow good oral hygiene practices.
3. Stay healthy by eating a healthy diet, drinking plenty of water and getting the recommended amount of daily exercise.+
4. See your dentist for regular check-ups and maintenance appointments.
*http://jada.ada.org April 2016
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