You Need a Professional
When you visit Drs. Tharp and Klaus for dental implants, you can rest assured knowing that you’re in good hands. While the minimum requirements for placing dental implants only requires dentists to take a weekend-long course, you can decide if they’re reliable by the amount of continuing education they’ve completed.
For example, Dr. Tharp is a Diplomate of the American Board of Prosthodontics and a Fellow of the International Congress of Oral Implantologists — which both require hundreds of continuing education hours and passing of intensive exams.
Drs. Tharp and Klaus want to take their care one step further by introducing advanced technology to improve the accuracy, speed, and planning of dental implant treatment.
CBCT Imaging
Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) is a form of sophisticated x-ray imaging that collects a three-dimensional view of your oral structure. In about fourteen seconds, the machine takes a variety of x-rays from different angles — in the shape of a cone — and combines them to make one full image that our dentists can use to prepare for your treatment.
At Tharp & Klaus Dental Clinic, we use the Galileos cone beam system from Sirona — a trusted brand of superior dental technology that’s been assisting implant providers for years. The three-dimensional view of your oral structure helps us evaluate root canals, old crowns, gum health, and the rest of your smile.
GPS for Dental Implant Surgery
Another piece of equipment we use is the SICAT software which works in tandem with our CBCT system to increase the accuracy of implant placement. This software uses the images from the CBCT scans to create a visual interpretation of how the surgery will go before it starts — also known as a surgical guide.
Surgical guides ensure that the implant is placed in the ideal location — no matter if the surgical site is small, in a hard-to-reach place, or an area of the jawbone that’s very thin. Predictable implant dentistry is not “one size fits all.” We rely on the expertise of Drs. Tharp and Klaus as well as these advanced technologies to produce a customized dental implant treatment.
Same Day Restorations with CEREC
CEREC is a computer-aided design and manufacturing system that we can use to create stunning dental restorations for our Flowood, MS patients. Before we begin the implant procedure, we’ll take impressions of your smile. From there, the CEREC machine will design and mill your new crown — matching the exact dimensions of your natural teeth, so nobody will know it’s a restoration.
Other benefits of CEREC include:
- Aesthetics: Our CEREC system creates the crowns from blocks of porcelain — this is a durable ceramic material that is perfect for dental restorations because its translucency matches your natural teeth.
- Less wait time: Typically, dental laboratories can take up to two weeks to design and manufacture a dental crown. However, with CEREC, your crown will be ready before we’re even done placing the implant.
- Immersion: The CEREC system translates the crown design and sends it to the Galileos CBCT software so that a surgical guide can be made.
