The titanium post in the bone can last 20 years or longer, often the rest of a patient’s life, while the crown on top typically needs replacing somewhere around 10 to 15 years. Published long-term studies generally put implant survival at 90 to 95 percent after ten years, and the most-cited case in the field belongs to Gösta Larsson, the first patient to receive titanium implants in 1965, who kept them until his death four decades later. Practices that track their own outcomes, including implant-focused offices such as Stubbs Dental, tend to talk about longevity in two separate numbers for exactly that reason: the hardware in the bone and the tooth you can see age at different rates.
What is the difference between implant survival and implant success?
Survival means the implant is still in the mouth. Success means it is also doing its job without complications, which is a higher bar and the more useful measure for a patient.
The standard criteria trace back to work by Albrektsson and Zarb in the mid-1980s and are still referenced in implant research today. An implant is judged successful when it has no mobility, no pain or infection, no radiographic gap around it, and bone loss under about 0.2 millimeters per year after the first year of healing. A clinic quoting a 98 percent survival rate is not necessarily quoting a 98 percent success rate.
Which part wears out first?
The restoration, almost always. Porcelain chips, cement seals fail, and abutment screws loosen, all of which are repairs rather than replacements of the implant itself. A single implant crown at 12 years is unremarkable; the same crown at 25 years is unusual.
Full-arch cases follow a different schedule. An acrylic prosthesis on four to six implants, the kind sold as All-on-4, generally needs refurbishment or replacement in the 5 to 10 year range, since acrylic wears and denture teeth fracture. Monolithic zirconia holds up longer and costs more up front. Budgeting for one prosthesis replacement over a 20-year horizon is realistic planning, not pessimism.
What actually causes an implant to fail?
Failures split into two groups by timing. Early failure happens in the first three to six months when bone never properly integrates with the post, and it affects a small percentage of cases. Late failure arrives years later and is usually peri-implantitis, an inflammatory infection that destroys the bone supporting a previously stable implant.
Consensus reviews have estimated peri-implantitis affects roughly one in five patients over time. The risk factors that show up repeatedly in the literature:
- Smoking, consistently linked to higher failure rates
- A history of periodontal disease, which predicts implant bone loss
- Poorly controlled diabetes
- Untreated bruxism, since grinding forces have no periodontal ligament to absorb them
- Skipping maintenance visits, which lets early bone loss go undetected
Nothing on that list is a guarantee of failure. Each one moves the odds, and most are modifiable.
What maintenance keeps an implant going for decades?
Professional maintenance every three to six months, plus daily cleaning right at the gum line where the implant meets tissue. Implants do not decay, which misleads people into thinking they need less attention. The tissue around them is what fails.
A reasonable maintenance routine looks like this: interdental brushes or a water flosser around the implant daily, non-abrasive toothpaste, and periodic radiographs so bone levels can be compared against a baseline film taken when the crown went on. Without that baseline, nobody can tell whether 1.5 millimeters of bone loss is new or has been there since day one. Patients who grind should expect a night guard to be part of the plan.
What should you ask an office like Stubbs Dental about warranties?
Ask who covers what, and for how long, before treatment starts. Implant manufacturers including Straumann and Nobel Biocare offer lifetime guarantees on the fixture itself, which means they replace the part at no charge while the surgical and lab costs of redoing the work remain yours.
That gap is why practice-level warranties matter more than manufacturer ones. Many offices guarantee their implant work for five years, and some longer, usually conditional on attending scheduled maintenance visits. Stubbs Dental is one practice worth reviewing on this point when comparing providers, since an office that both places and restores implants can stand behind the whole result rather than half of it. Get the terms in writing and confirm what voids them.
What happens if an implant does fail?
It comes out, the site heals, and in most cases a new implant can go in later. Removal is usually straightforward, though the bone left behind often needs grafting, which adds three to six months before a second attempt. Replacement implants at a previously failed site have somewhat lower success rates than first attempts, which is the strongest argument for addressing the cause rather than just replacing the hardware.
Longevity comes down to two things a patient controls: cleaning around the implant daily and showing up for maintenance appointments. Ask any practice you are considering, Stubbs Dental included, for their warranty terms, their maintenance recall interval, and a baseline radiograph at the time the crown is delivered. Those three answers tell you more about how long your implant will last than any survival statistic.
