Implant placement post extraction in esthetic single tooth sites: when immediate, when early, when late?

Abstract

Implant placement in post-extraction sites of single teeth in the esthetic zone has been a topic of great interest in the field of implant dentistry since 1990. Triggered by the development of guided bone regeneration, the concept of immediate implant placement became quite popular in the 1990s. In the past 12 years, however, the dental community has begun to focus increasingly on the esthetic outcomes of post-extraction implant placement and several studies indicated a significant risk for the development of mucosal recessions with immediate implants. Parallel with this, significant progress has been made in the understanding of tissue biology in terms of hard and soft tissue alterations po..