An instrument for the optimal guiding of osseointegrated dental implants

The purpose of this study was to design an instrument for the optimal guiding of osseointegrated implants intraoperatively to achieve parallelism or desired angulations. Seven patients (4 males and 3 females) were enrolled in the investigation. They ranged in age from 44 to 61 years. Using an instrument designed by the senior author that permitted optimal guiding of the osteotomy instruments (33 Osteofix Oy, Oulu, Finland) we placed in these patients, root form, single stage implants. The difference in angulations between the first and the remaining implants was measured using the abutment replicas on the working models. It was found that the mean deviation angle between the first and the adjacent implant replicas was 2.2 degrees (SD = 0.4 degrees). The largest deviation angles were 2.3 degrees (SD = 0.5 degrees) and 3.1 degrees (SD = 0.8 degrees). The study indicated that the instrument had been designed in a functional manner and that all implants in such relationships can be inserted into their desired positions, either parallel to one another or with the desired angle for the planned prostheses.