Dental Implantation in Dubai

An implant replaces the root of a missing tooth — a titanium screw placed into the jaw, which over several months bonds directly to the bone around it and then carries a crown, a bridge or a denture attachment.

The reason to replace a root rather than simply fill the gap is that bone responds to load. A jaw that no longer carries a tooth resorbs, slowly and permanently. That is why a face changes shape years after teeth are lost, why a denture that fitted five years ago no longer does, and why the cost of replacing a tooth rises the longer the decision is postponed: the bone that would have held an implant for free has to be rebuilt.

The practical consequence for the patient is that an implant stands on its own. It does not require the neighbouring teeth to be cut down to carry it, and it does not move when you eat. Details are on the page about dental implants.

Implant treatment succeeds or fails at the planning stage, and planning is done in three dimensions. Before anything is placed, a cone beam scan on the clinic's Planmeca Viso G5 shows how much bone is present in height and width, how dense it is, where the inferior alveolar nerve runs in the lower jaw, where the floor of the maxillary sinus sits above the upper molars, and how the opposing teeth will meet the finished crown.

None of that is visible on a two-dimensional radiograph. The specific complications of implant surgery — nerve injury with altered sensation of the lip and chin, sinus perforation, an implant emerging through the outer plate of bone — are the complications of placing without a scan. The scan is taken on site, so planning does not wait on an external imaging centre; see CBCT and dental X-ray.

Medical history is assessed at the same time: diabetes and its control, smoking, antiresorptive medication taken for osteoporosis or in oncology, anticoagulants, and the state of the gums. Where periodontal disease is active it is stabilised first — the same bacteria colonise an implant, and peri-implantitis is harder to treat than gum disease around a natural tooth.

Bone loss after extraction is normal, and after several years the ridge is often too narrow or too short for an implant of adequate size. Where the deficit is small it is grafted at the same appointment as placement. Where it is larger, grafting is a separate procedure with months of healing before the implant goes in.

In the upper back jaw the limiting structure is the maxillary sinus, whose floor descends as molars are lost. Raising that floor and placing graft material beneath it — a sinus lift — creates the height an implant needs. Both routes are described on the page about bone grafting and sinus lift.

One decision saves most of this trouble, and it is made before the tooth comes out rather than after. Graft material placed into the socket at the time of extraction limits the collapse that would otherwise follow, and where an implant is likely it often removes the need for a separate grafting procedure a year later. Ask about it at the extraction appointment, not at the implant consultation.

The implant is the part nobody sees. What decides whether the result reads as a tooth is the restoration: shade, translucency and surface texture matched to the neighbours, contact with the opposing tooth set so the load is distributed, and an emergence profile from the gum that can actually be cleaned.

That work is done in the clinic's own digital dental laboratory, with the shade decided in the same building as the patient. Preparation and cementation are checked under a dental operating microscope — residual cement left under the gum is a recognised trigger of peri-implant inflammation, and it is not visible without magnification.

Maintenance afterwards matters more than most patients are told. An implant does not decay, which is often misread as needing less attention. The seal between gum and implant is weaker than around a natural tooth, so plaque left at that margin reaches bone faster. Reviews include probing around the implant and periodic radiographs, because early peri-implantitis is silent and is found on measurement rather than by symptom.

For a straightforward single tooth, expect three to six months from placement to the definitive crown, because the implant needs time to integrate. Grafting extends that. A temporary tooth can usually be provided during healing, so a visible gap is not part of the treatment.

Implants are not the only answer and are not always the best one. Where the neighbouring teeth already carry large restorations, a bridge may be the more sensible use of the same money. Where bone is inadequate or surgery is contraindicated, a removable option is a legitimate treatment rather than a consolation prize. All viable options are quoted, with their trade-offs stated.

A dental consultation at ELEMENTAL is AED 850 and includes the examination and a written treatment plan. The treatment price is confirmed in writing after the examination. Prices current as of October 2026. The scan, the surgical stage, any grafting and the final restoration are quoted separately in writing once the scan has been read. A single figure before assessment would be guesswork: the same missing tooth can mean an implant into adequate bone, an implant with simultaneous grafting, or a staged graft followed months later by placement — three different pieces of work with three different prices.