Thank you for posting this! I have a tooth I need extracted due to a fracture from stress, and have dreaded getting the screw implant in my lower jaw. Science to the rescue!
I'm curious as to the long term failure rate of this type of implant. Teeth shift and there will be bone loss around it to some extent. It may be a better option but I don't think it is as perfect as the marketing makes it seem.
Good points but I think it will not be bone loss if you are actually using this tooth, same way you don't have bone loss around titanium screw.
I don't think anyone knows potential issues with this one, except that they sound better. Current implants last from 10-25 yrs sometimes and are the best solution. This has potential to provide even better one.
There have been 5-10 year follow-ups, no issues at all. In particular, the use of zirconia has proven to be as effective (and much more esthetic) than titanium.
Tell me this is true! Because it does make sense. I want this to be true :).
I would totally be game to go to Vienna, provided I can pay for procedure (well and need one). Implants, the ones with screw are supposedly one of the most durable ways to fix your tooth.
> We have attempted to publish papers in leading journals, but have repeatedly encountered resistance to this innovative idea from “The Establishment”. Dental industry perferes to sell simple titanium screw type variations at the price of 200 Euros (a middel class cellphone!) and industry recruited experts simply prefere to make money with risky and costly operations and love to teach confusing drill sequences and fill guide lines.
Why not make the paper available anyway, like on arxiv.org?
In particular, if they're so confident about the absurdity of the critiques, they should publish those as well. Maybe dentists have some real concern that these inventors are dismissing out of hand - the best way to dispel that, if false, is to make it public.
Other content in this article makes me a bit nervous.
For example, it strongly implies at several points that the dental association has a conspiracy to keep patients using less safe technology because it leads to recurring surgeries:
> No one can argue against this logical access to immediate implantology.
> Surgeons like simple titanium screws because they mean more surgery. More surgery means more money.
I've seen the actual rejection letters from prominent dental implant journals stating that this treatment is not of interest to their readership, and to seek publication elsewhere.
Perhaps it's not a coordinated conspiracy, but this really is a 'WTF?' situation.
Might as well have bright red flashing letters at the top of the page saying "WE ARE QUACKS." It's possible this product is great, but my immediate reaction to any medical product that positions itself as the underdog fighting against the evil establishment is to run far, far away.
Sadly, as much as I would like the content all to be true, 'Quack' is my assessment too. They say they have been selling this in Austria for 11 years but want crowdfunding to take it abroad. Somehow that does not add up.
And in my experience dentists are really pretty open to innovation, especially 3d scanning and machining. Most recently I got a grinding guard and instead of taking an impression my dentist actually used a Danish scanner that pieced together a couple of hundred individual photos.
Immediate reaction from me too, the "dentists won't adopt it cause it makes them lose money" rings exactly like the story of the air powered car and similar.
Previous papers are readily downloadable on the website. It's just the latest papers (with the longest-term follow-ups) that Dr Pirker is holding out for, hoping to get them published in one of the top journals.
But yes, bioRxiv would be a good idea!
To answer some of the naysayers: this is definitely not a quack treatment. The CEO is unconventional, to be sure, but the patient always comes first.
Just to address any lingering doubt: I'm a recipient of this implant, so yes: first hand experience, dogfooding, etc.
Two days ago SENS foundation head told a similar story. The publication system is biased toward low hanging fruit and nothing hard and innovative gets promoted. Didn't have time to ask for more information about the subject sadly. But your comment makes me more than curious now.
Seeing this on HN is a little confusing because I will hopefully be soon getting an implant by Dr. Pirker. I was in has practice a couple of weeks ago and we had a long, for me very inspiring talk not only on my implant but on the worrying state of medicine and society in general.
And yeah, from what I understood, he is looking for investors for a more automated manufacturing process for the currently hand-crafted implants.
I work with Dr Pirker (CEO/developer of BioImplant).
AMA!
BioImplant is one of those truly disruptive technologies: a new paradigm. It's interesting (as a HN reader) to see such a tech story unfold in 'real time'.
The biggest obstacle so far has been to foster awareness of this treatment option via popular media (ie. an article in an English-language newspaper/magazine). The dental world is fixated on simple screw type implants, which are costly, unnatural, and very rarely satisfactory.
A crown is just the external part of the tooth. That's relatively easy to scan and reproduce. It's much more difficult to scan the root while it's 'in situ' in the jaw. Hence the careful extraction...
You need to seriously work on your website. It reads like one of those homeopathy websites promising water with molecular quantum memory that preys on stupid people who don't understand science.
>The dental world is fixated on simple screw type implants, which are costly, unnatural, and very rarely satisfactory.
Sure, but when "BioImplant™ is only suitable for an immediate implant (where extraction and implantation are part of the same procedure). You must already have a fresh tooth socket" traditional implant is the only way : (
What is funny to me is that by avoiding "geometry" the tech looks very primitive; but if thinking in terms of tissue and context, it's so much better than a screw.
Quick heads up that your website doesn't display properly (I can zoom out so that your entire site is a thin column on the left of the screen) on my phone. I'm on Chrome on a Samsung Galaxy S5.
Sounds amazing. Just one question. Is there any possibility of this technology being licensed out to other countries in the near (or mid term) future? I live in India and would love to get this done, but travelling to Europe for this is not all that feasible.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadI don't think anyone knows potential issues with this one, except that they sound better. Current implants last from 10-25 yrs sometimes and are the best solution. This has potential to provide even better one.
The real savings come later: there's no subsequent treatment to deal with infections (peri-implantitis) or other complications.
BioImplant is basically 'fit and forget'.
There have been 5-10 year follow-ups, no issues at all. In particular, the use of zirconia has proven to be as effective (and much more esthetic) than titanium.
I would totally be game to go to Vienna, provided I can pay for procedure (well and need one). Implants, the ones with screw are supposedly one of the most durable ways to fix your tooth.
> Are there any long-term follow up publications?
> We have attempted to publish papers in leading journals, but have repeatedly encountered resistance to this innovative idea from “The Establishment”. Dental industry perferes to sell simple titanium screw type variations at the price of 200 Euros (a middel class cellphone!) and industry recruited experts simply prefere to make money with risky and costly operations and love to teach confusing drill sequences and fill guide lines.
Why not make the paper available anyway, like on arxiv.org?
For example, it strongly implies at several points that the dental association has a conspiracy to keep patients using less safe technology because it leads to recurring surgeries:
> No one can argue against this logical access to immediate implantology.
> Surgeons like simple titanium screws because they mean more surgery. More surgery means more money.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13361392#13362425
I'd be curious to hear lancewiggs's views on this tech.
Perhaps it's not a coordinated conspiracy, but this really is a 'WTF?' situation.
And in my experience dentists are really pretty open to innovation, especially 3d scanning and machining. Most recently I got a grinding guard and instead of taking an impression my dentist actually used a Danish scanner that pieced together a couple of hundred individual photos.
Actually, this is rather rare.
History is full of examples of superior tech/ideas struggling or even failing because of this.
Allow yourself to assume this is one of these cases before dismissing it based on the reverse assumption.
Also consider that Austria != the valley.
But yes, bioRxiv would be a good idea!
To answer some of the naysayers: this is definitely not a quack treatment. The CEO is unconventional, to be sure, but the patient always comes first.
Just to address any lingering doubt: I'm a recipient of this implant, so yes: first hand experience, dogfooding, etc.
HN has a pretty open submission mechanism, and gets all kinds of nifty stuff submitted here that people could find interesting.
It's not a call for "Hackers" (of the evil system cracking kind, etc) to do anything nasty with them.
AMA!
BioImplant is one of those truly disruptive technologies: a new paradigm. It's interesting (as a HN reader) to see such a tech story unfold in 'real time'.
The biggest obstacle so far has been to foster awareness of this treatment option via popular media (ie. an article in an English-language newspaper/magazine). The dental world is fixated on simple screw type implants, which are costly, unnatural, and very rarely satisfactory.
The implant is milled from a 3D scan of the extracted tooth. It's very much an artisan process, which we're hoping to make entirely digital.
A fully digital process would allow this treatment to be offered by any dentist, anywhere in the world (with a good internet connection, of course).
With the right investor(s), that 'hypothetical' will change into an affirmative. (And you'd only have to travel to your local dentist.)
http://www.bioimplant.at/pictures/
That's just my impression though. :)
Sure, but when "BioImplant™ is only suitable for an immediate implant (where extraction and implantation are part of the same procedure). You must already have a fresh tooth socket" traditional implant is the only way : (
Edit: corrected the country