Types of Dental Implant Abutments

Background: With the high rate of implant success for edentulous, partially edentulous, and single-tooth restorations the concept of osseointegration and implant therapy is now a highly predictable treatment modality. Several implant abutment designs are constantly evolving to meet esthetic and functional requirements. This overview aims to discuss different categories of implant abutments according to their designs, mechanics of implant abutment connection, method of abutments fabrication, and the materials from which abutments are made. Part one of this article series discusses screw versus cement retained abutments, mechanics of implant abutment connection and angulated versus straight abutments. Methods: A Medline search was completed for the period from 1986 to 2009, along with a manual search, to identify English articles related to selected topic. Conclusion: The availability of the variety of abutments described makes restoration using implants relatively easy and predictable. Implant dentistry nowadays is almost a daily practice in every dental clinic, because of that it is mandatory for the clinician to get enough knowledge especially about different implant components so as to achieve high success rate of teeth replacement by implants