Replacing hopeless retained deciduous teeth in adults utilizing dental implants: concepts and case presentation.

Hopeless retained deciduous teeth without permanent successors pose a restorative challenge for clinicians as well as certain clinical problems for patients. Compromised aesthetics, shifting of adjacent teeth, altered occlusion, and supereruption of teeth are examples of problems that can arise when a permanent tooth is congenitally missing. Mattheeuws, et al1 reported that the mandibular second premolars are the permanent teeth most often congenitally missing, followed in prevalence by the maxillary lateral incisors and the maxillary second premolars. Larmour, et al2 reported that in Caucasians the mandibular second premolars and maxillary lateral incisors were the teeth most frequently absent, while in Asians the mandibular incisors were the most frequently missing teeth.