Nearly 100 needy patients will receive their dental implant free of cost in Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences. Half of them were treated on Saturday while the rest will get new teeth implanted on Sunday.
"We have a data bank of patients and we take help from NGOs and other hospitals to figure out patients who cannot pay for the Rs 20,000 to Rs 40,000 treatment," said Dr Brij Sabaherwal, MAIDS.
The exercise is a part of an annual training module for the postgraduate students of the institute who are trained in dental implants by the American Academy of Implant Dentistry (AAID).
"We do not have a dedicated module in India for this technique of dental care. The help from abroad by trained and established dentists become important in this context," said Dr Mahesh Verma, director-principal, MAIDS.
He added that the institute carries out implants for selected patients for purely academic purposes, as a part of PG teaching.
There are two ways to replace a removed tooth. One method involves putting removable teeth, which is the most common form of treatment in India.
Other method is to replace the tooth with a titanium alloy which is more permanent in nature.
"The removable tooth replaces only 20 per cent of the function of the natural tooth while the implant gives 80 per cent functionality," said Dr Sabaherwal. The technique is not common here due to a combination of factors.
"Tooth implant needs training in specialised methodology for drilling and implanting. One has to build artificial bone too. It also needs more sophisticated equipments and inter-disciplinary training. We try to give this training in our modules here," said New York-based Dr Gurinder Wadhwa, who is associated with AAID and taking the modules in MAIDS.