Conventional implant placement
The standard way of providing implant teeth for patients has been to place the implants and wait for 3 to 6 months before providing the tooth restorations.
The protocol which was originally developed clearly states that we must wait three months in the lower jaw and six months in the upper jaw before we can begin to construct the new dental prosthesis that will be supported by the implants. In recent years, however, there has been a movement within the profession to sort of speed up this process due to significant improvement of material science and clinical technology. Today we believe that it is possible in selected patients to accelerate the healing time. We are even loading implants in very specific situations right away. However, the general protocol that Dr. Yi favors is 3 months in the lower jaw and 4 months in the upper jaw. This is still the way the vast majority of implant dentistry are performed.

Immediate implant placement
Unlikely the conventional surgery, Dr. Yi may encounter a situation to replace a debilitating teeth after extract them. To avoid multiple surgery, minimize patient’s discomfort and expedite whole procedure, Dr. Yi prefers to perform immediate implant placement at the same time of extraction. It may require additional bone graft procedure but definitely will save 3-4 months compare to conventional methods.

Conventional implant placement

At the time of implant placement	Final prosthesis (splinted)
Follow up in 5 years
11/5/06  At the time of delivery of prosthesis	9/30/11 Bone remodeling:  Bone formation around implant fixtures

Immediate implant placement

Extraction of #19 due to periodontal abscess and concurrent placement	Improved gingival architecture after simplified atraumatic surgical procedures
Implant placement into large extraction socket	Carefully extracted tooth with granulation tissue around its roots
1/24/11 Extraction socket	4/18/11 Crown was made only after 3 month
Screw retained Ceramic Implant Crown was fabricated by Dr. Yi	10/31/11 Stable bone response