Implant treatment planning for the medically compromised patient: a case report of full-mouth reconstruction with dental implants.

The dental literature supports the many benefits of dental implant-supported prostheses for the fully edentulous arch.1 These benefits include increased chewing ability, bone preservation, sharpened phonetics, and an improved psychological outlook for an edentulous patient. Treatment planning for dental implants is a multidisciplinary process that takes into account many areas of dentistry and medicine. Foremost in the treatment planning process is consideration of the patient’s medical history and a determination as to whether he or she is a candidate for the surgical appointments needed for dental implant placement. The health benefits that a patient could gain from an implant-supported prosthesis must be weighed against the risks of surgical treatment.2 This article explains in detail the treatment planning, surgical, and prosthetic steps taken to reconstruct a medically compromised patient’s mouth with dental implants in the maxillary and mandibular arches.