[Current dental implant design and its clinical importance]

The development of clinical implant dentistry was intensively affected by dental implant design improvement and innovation, which brought about new concept, even milestone-like changes of clinical protocol. The current improvements of dental implant design and their clinical importance could be highlighted as followings: 1) The implant apical design influences the implant preliminary stability in immediate implant. The apical 3-5 mm design of implant makes implant stable in immediate implant, because this part would be screwed into alveolar bone through fresh socket, the other part of implant could not be tightly screwed in the socket because of smaller implant diameter. Implant apical form, screw design, self-taping of apical part would be essential for immediate implant. 2) The enough preliminary stability of implant makes immediate prosthesis possible. When osseointegration does not occur, the implant stability comes from a mechanical anchorage, which depends on implant form, screw thread and self-taping design. 3) Implant neck design may have influence for soft tissue recession in esthetic zone. The implant with large shoulder would not be selected for the esthetic area. The platform design may be more favorable in the area. 4) The connection design between implant and abutment is thought a very important structure in implant long-term stability. Moose taper and "tube in tube" were well documented structure design in 20-year clinical practice in Peking University. 5) In last 15 years, the plenty studies showed the platform design of implant had positive influence in implant marginal bone level. Whatever in single implant restoration or multi-implant prosthesis. 6) The digital technology makes clinical work more precise and high-tech. This would be a trend in implant dentistry. New generation of chair-side digital computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing makes immediate prosthesis without conventional impression possible. 7) New abutment design have changed clinical protocol greatly. The All-on-four concept and Weldone concept benefit both from the abutment innovation, which were large angulated abutment and special welding abutment materials.