2019 Volume 11 Issue 4 Pages 350-354
The number of edentulous patients has not been decreasing until now. Some prosthetic interventions are needed for the improvement of quality of life in edentulous. Although the effectiveness of mandibular implant overdenture (IOD) has already been elucidated for mandibular edentulous in McGill consensus, there is a controversy regarding the choice of implant prosthesis for maxillary edentulous. The implant prosthetic design should be selected in maxillary edentulous with taking into consideration of the number of implants, cost effectiveness, function to be improved, patients’ preference and life-stage comprehensively. Based on this debate, my opinion is shown below; 1) in cases where functional recovery and/or esthetic recovery are difficult due to large anatomical limitations, IOD can be selected rather than implant-supported fixed prosthesis (ISFP), 2) ISFP can be selected for patients with discomfort in removable dentures, and IOD should be selected if the improvement of patient satisfaction and functional recovery can be expected by existing denture to some extent, 3) either ISFP or IOD may be selected in accordance with patient’s preference (actually ISFP is more preferred) in the middle age, but ISFP should be gradually shifted to IOD in the later years.
