‘Immediacy’ covers a range of procedures in implant dentistry1. It refers to placing an implant immediately in a tooth extraction socket and/or placing a prosthesis immediately, irrespective of whether the implant was placed in a fresh or a healed extraction site. Immediacy addresses patient expectations by shortening time to teeth, saving costs, reducing surgery and clinic visits – which is an advantage during a pandemic.

Tapered implants are central to immediacy because of their high primary stability. Our wide range includes Straumann BLX, which is now available in 30 countries.

In 2020, we introduced a new zygomatic implant solution at a virtual launch event including an online symposium, interactive plenary sessions and a virtual congress booth.

Zygomatic implants differ from conventional implants in that they are anchored in the zygomatic (cheek) bone rather than the upper jaw. They are used in patients with severe bone loss, and thanks to the firm stability achievable in dense zygomatic bone, a prosthesis can usually be placed immediately. Our new zygomatic implant system complements BLX and our immediacy portfolio; it addresses the needs of specialists who use large volumes of implants in conjunction with zygomatics – usually from the same manufacturer. Straumann zygomatic implants are compatible with our bone level prosthetic portfolio. Thus they offer the advantages of our BLX and BLT prosthetic range for fixed overdentures and can be used with our coDiagnostix software to plan the implant position by computer.

The latest addition to our immediacy portfolio is TLX, which combines the neck design of our iconic Tissue Level (TL) implant – one of the longest and best-selling implants – with the innovative endosteal design of BLX, perfected for immediate protocols. The combination of high primary stability and the advantages of TL, designed for peri-implant health preservation and to simplify handling and reduce treatment complexity should bring us closer to the goal of leadership in immediacy when it comes to market in 2021. A large preclinical and clinical program began in 2019.

The ImmediaXy online campaign, launched in 2020, promotes Straumann’s broad range of solutions, including our Smile in a Box service, which supplies implants, guides, drills and prosthetics for immediacy protocols together in one pack.

¹ Definition of terms as described in: Implant placement and loading protocols: A systematic review: German Gallucci, Adam Hamilton, Wenjie Zhou, Daniel Buser and Stephen Chen. 2018, Amsterdam Consensus meeting.