[Teeth--too early to eulogize!].

Abstract

With the growing use of dental implants and the high success and survival rates, less effort is being made for treating and preserving teeth. Teeth, on some cases, are being extracted too early and become more affected by service interventions than by oral diseases. Though dental implants, bone grafts and other augmentation techniques are rather successful, the real long term results of such cases are not always highly predictable. Teeth have been proven over the years to survive for a very long time with an appropriate treatment and maintenance. Before declaring a tooth to be hopeless and scheduled for extraction, careful thought should be taken if this tooth is really hopeless and cannot be preserved. Risk factors for dental implant survival and success such as cigarette smoking, periodontal disease, and diabetes mellitus should also be accounted for. It should be kept in mind also, that nowadays, we are much better in treating periodontitis than we are in treating periimplantitis.