Implant innovation brings hope for hard-to-treat patients

The health impacts of missing teeth are often underestimated, yet the inability to chew food properly can lead to impaired digestion and poorer nutrition. Then there are the social costs, too, such as lack of self-esteem and embarrassment.

One in ten patients with missing teeth can’t be helped with a traditional dental implant, often because they don’t have enough healthy bone in their jaw due to trauma or disease like oral cancers.

But a team of University of Melbourne academics, dental practitioners and engineers, led by Associate Professor Roy Judge (MDSc Clinical-Coursework 1998, PhD 2006), Head of Prosthodontics at Melbourne Dental School, have designed a solution for these hard-to-treat patients.

“The people most likely to benefit are our older patients who have been missing teeth for an extended period of time,” says Associate Professor Judge. “This group is growing in size due to increased life expectancy in Australia and across the globe.”

The Rectangular Block Implant (RBI), developed by Associate Professor Judge, Associate Professor Joseph Palamara and Dr Tim Gazelakis, is the first solution to be designed and prototyped in Australia. It makes the best use of whatever bone volume a patient has remaining, minimises the risk to nerves and veins in the jaw, and maximises force distribution to give patients a better chewing experience.

It is a unique design aimed at patients who otherwise would not be able to receive a dental implant without risky surgical procedures or unpredictable large-scale bone grafts says Associate Professor Judge.

Proof-of-concept human clinical trials have begun with successful outcomes so far. A recent Australian Education Accelerator Grant has enabled Associate Professor Judge and the team to move towards manufacturing the RBI to industry standard.

A series of global patents have been secured and the next phase will develop a multicentre, independent clinical trial.

An Innovation Grant will further the commercialisation and translation of the RBI and allow Associate Professor Judge to expand the research team.

Next steps include working on a grafting technique to support the implant, writing a training manual for dental clinicians to use in practice, and detecting ways to objectively measure how the dental implant is integrating into bone.

We also want to train clinicians within Melbourne Dental School, as well as nationally and internationally, to use the Rectangular Block Implant and to know when to apply it says Associate Professor Judge.

“Having multiple insights and inputs from enthusiastic and smart people is key to getting to where we are today with the RBI — a team approach has driven this innovation.”