| research The Implant Protection Plan (I.P.P.) Innovative implant and periodontal maintenance protocol Drs Tiziano Testori, Giordano Bordini & Matteo Basso, Italy Introduction The last 30 years of world dentistry have undoubtedly been characterised by the exponential growth of im- plantology, which has gone from being a discipline in the hands of a few experts “to being a field of treatment at many dental practices. There are several reasons for this increase: firstly, surgical and prosthetic techniques have been simplified over the years, repeatable proto- cols being certified by decades of literature, reducing costs for the patient and limiting invasiveness and post- operative discomfort. In addition, many patients want an aesthetic and functional restoration by means of fixed implant prostheses as their first choice, rather than re- sorting to solutions such as removable prostheses or fixed prostheses on natural teeth involving the prosthetic “... modern implantology is trying to address the possibility of guaranteeing a clinical result that endures over time ...” preparation of healthy teeth. Ultimately, it should not be under-estimated that implantology has also increased because it represents a source of income for the eco- nomic balance sheet of many healthcare facilities that have decided to specialise in this field. However, the im- plementation of an oral implant rehabilitation, be it a sin- gle tooth or a complex solution, cannot and must not today represent the end point either for the patient or for the dentist and his or her team. Nowadays, thanks to our knowledge, we have no difficulty in achieving implant-based rehabilitation even in cases of severe bone atrophy using regenerative techniques. The critical point that modern implantology is trying to address, not always successfully, is the possibility of guaranteeing a clinical result that endures over time. To achieve this ambitious goal, it is crucial to design an effective and feasible implant and periodontal main- tenance protocol. We know that home maintenance around implants can be more difficult than around natural teeth because the techniques and instruments to be used, in many clinical cases, are inevitably differ- ent from those used for natural teeth. In addition, we may be confronted with the typical pathologies of im- plants, represented by mucositis and peri-implantitis, subtle pathologies that are difficult to control and whose differences from gingivitis and periodontitis we have learnt about.1 According to studies on the preva- lence of peri-implant disease,2 45% of patients show, after an average of nine years, signs of mild peri- implantitis and 14.5% medium to severe. In recent times, we have gained knowledge about oral biofilm, discover- ing that the biofilm changes in its characteristics when a pathology is established and that some pathologies, such as mucositis and peri-implantitis, are charac- terised by a repetitiveness in the type of pathogenic microorganisms present.3 Implant maintenance proto- cols, however, have not evolved alongside knowledge, sometimes only introducing new instruments or tech- nologies, such as laser therapy or phototherapy, and some new antiseptic principles. The concepts of periodontal and peri-implant eubiosis and dysbiosis One of the key points for the long-term success of a patient rehabilitated with implants, which is no different from that of a patient treated for periodontal disease, is to establish a correct programme of supportive ther- apy and periodic follow-up that includes differentiated recalls based on an analysis of risk factors and conse- quent classification into risk categories. The literature and our decades of clinical experience have shown that patients with treated periodontal disease are at risk of having setbacks and developing a new disease process.4 Thus, the implant patient or the periodontal therapy patient should not and must not be consid- ered a patient who after treatment, however success- ful, can return to being normal and be low risk. Based on this scientific and clinical evidence, we can begin to plan the future of our therapies, starting with the biological basis of the problem and the new assump- 06 4 2021