The implant is the screw placed in the jawbone and on which the crown is fixed. Bacteria are part of the oral flora. They can adhere, gather and grow at the intersection between implant, crown and bone, underneath the gum. Patients cannot clean this area with a toothbrush. Bacteria grow and cause an inflammation, the bone degrades and reduces in size around the implant, the gingiva laying on top of the bone caves in. At some point the bone has degraded so much that the screw becomes visible. At a later stage of the disease, the implant loses its integrity in the jaw and must be removed.
This is called periimplantitis and is considered a major and growing problem in dentistry. Recent industry-independent studies showed a dramatic progression of this disease over time. After 5 years, a third of all implants are affected; after 9 years, 60% of all implants present a bone loss of about 30%. In Europe, we estimated that >22 million dental implants required a treatment in 2022. This number will soar to 28 million by 2024. Dentists are facing periimplantitis every day. The commonly applied therapies are based on a combination of mechanical, physical, chemical and pharmaceutical measures that were designed for other diseases and are not adapted here.
In contrast, AmbiJet goes far beyond state of the art. It is a device that generates and uses a plasma jet to clean and save dental implants. Plasma is an electrically activated gas, and can be designed to kill and disintegrate microorganisms, like bacteria, viruses and fungi. The treatment does not lead to the development of multi-resistance as antimicrobial agents do. In dentistry as in all fields of medicine, a race takes place between bacteria and body cells; AmbiJet tailors the surface properties of the implant to reduce bacterial reinfection and improve cell adhesion. Per design, the plasma jet is guided towards the implant; thus, AmbiJet proved a much higher efficacy than any competing treatment option, without harming the surrounding tissues. Moreover, the crown, which is fixed on the dental implant inserted in the bone, does not need be removed for the treatment. With AmbiJet, dentists get an easy-to-use device for a holistic therapy concept to reliably treat periimplantitis.
