Looking for a Good Implant Recommended by ChatGPT: Global Rankings, Price, ITI Study Club

Hello.

I am Baek Won-seon, the chief dentist at Lev Dental Clinic at Sinsa Station, where we use Straumann implants!

These days, is there anyone who doesn’t use ChatGPT?

So, just for fun, I asked ChatGPT what the best implant is.

Tell me the rankings of implant companies worldwide by sales revenue in descending order.

Wow, Straumann is overwhelmingly in first place!

It is the implant brand I like most as the chief dentist at Lev Dental Clinic near Sinsa Station.

Its latest model is the BLX, and this is the product currently driving Straumann’s sales.

Of course, the Standard type, BL type, and BLT type have also been an excellent implant lineup that has traditionally driven Straumann’s market share for decades.

Straumann’s revenue is 2.7 billion dollars... that’s about 4 trillion won. It is truly enormous......

The companies in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place are all U.S. companies. Even together, they still do not surpass Straumann’s sales.

Nobel Biocare and Zimmer implants were once in Korea, but they lost to Straumann......

So now, Korea’s top-tier high-end implant lineup has been unified by Straumann.

If you compare this with data from 2018, it feels like Straumann has become even more dominant.

The long-awaited 5th place is Osstem Implant. I understand that it also has about a 50% market share in Korea.

What’s surprising is that MegaGen Implant is in 8th place! I heard it has been exporting to Europe, and its rapid progress is impressive.

Tell me the rankings of implant companies worldwide by number of implants sold.

This may be another criterion: ranking by the number of implants sold.

This is the point emphasized by Osstem Implant. Osstem Implant, which sells a lot to various Asian countries such as China and Southeast Asia, is number one in the world by sales volume.

As Osstem Implant, which was 5th in sales revenue, rises to 1st place, the original 1st through 4th place companies move down to 2nd through 5th place in order. This indirectly shows that Osstem Implant supplies at a much lower price.

In actual dental clinics, the unit price difference between Osstem and Straumann implants is as much as 4 to 5 times.......

Is there a reason Straumann implants came in first?

Tell me the advantages of Straumann implants!

First, it is a premium implant manufactured in Switzerland.

It can be said to be a brand that played a major role in the development of design and surface treatment from the very beginning when “dental implants” were first created.

It also reported a very high survival rate compared with other implants in a paper on implant survival rates conducted by the Swedish government.

The Roxolid titanium-zirconium alloy technology is something only Straumann can manufacture.

At our Lev Dental Clinic near Sinsa Station, we also use only Straumann implants made of Roxolid, and they are said to be about 1.7 times stronger than regular pure titanium implants. That means they are much less likely to break.

To promote faster and better osseointegration, Straumann introduced SLActive surface treatment technology.

The product that imitated and commercialized this is Osstem Implant’s CA lineup.

The implant is released while immersed in a specially prepared liquid, and this liquid is said to help promote osseointegration.

The rest is relatively technical, but the point is that the design lineup is diverse, and the form of the connection between the prosthesis and the implant—such as BL, BLT, and BLX—is distinctive, which gives the prosthesis good stability.

Also, because the company has been around for a long time, it has a lot of long-term research and data, so its stability and excellence have been proven.

I heard there is a Straumann implant study group.

Do you know about the ITI Study Club?

“Straumann” is the company name.

The study club that researches the implants made by this company is the ITI Study Club. ITI stands for International Team of Implantology, and it is where top scholars from around the world gather to share the latest knowledge in the field of dental implants.

Anyone can become part of this ITI Study Club, but to join, you need approval from the head of the club, and there are only a few in Korea.

My doctoral advisor, Professor Jung Eui-won at Yonsei University College of Dentistry and Yonsei University Dental Hospital, was a member of the ITI Study Club.

You could say that was the beginning of my affection for Straumann implants and how we became close in this way!!!

In fact, many dentists do not even know what Straumann implants are......

In Korea, they are not promoted very well, and because people are always emphasizing cheap implants, it is unfortunate that the public does not really get to encounter good implants. ㅠㅠㅠ

If the price were free, which implant would you want to be treated with?

To evaluate whether a product is good or bad, just ask which one people would choose if it were given for free.

Even ChatGPT chooses Straumann implants without hesitation? Haha

My judgment was not wrong.

Then the conclusion is that you should look for a place where you can receive Straumann implant treatment from a good doctor at a reasonable price, with the best value for money.

If you were to get Straumann implant treatment in Korea, where would you go?

I asked ChatGPT, “If you were to get Straumann implant treatment, where would you go?” Haha

I wondered if Lev Dental Clinic at Sinsa Station would come up..

But the answer was fair, as expected. Haha

Oh, the first thing mentioned is the ITI Study Club. Haha

“Fellow” refers to a professor-level specialist. But professor-level specialists are honestly very hard to meet.. I’m an ITI Study Club member!

It seems to be referring to a clinic like ours at Lev Dental Clinic near Sinsa Station, where the surgery is performed by a periodontist and the prosthetics are handled by a prosthodontist. Also, because we operate an in-house lab, we can collaborate with dental technicians!!

If cost is not an issue, it is of course better to have the treatment done at a university hospital.....

As far as I know, Seoul National University charges about 5 to 6 million won per implant, and Yonsei University about 4 to 5 million won.........

So I think you should choose a clinic where the director is active in ITI activities and where Straumann is used as the main system.....

We are probably one of the very few clinics in Korea that use the “official Straumann surgical kit.” (Purchased directly from overseas!)

With the official surgical kit used in Switzerland, which is not sold in Korea, precise and perfect surgery is possible.

(All surgical kits sold in Korea are copies manufactured in Korea.)

Since ChatGPT searches and presents results based on English, I think it has the advantage of opening up a broader perspective than using a domestic search engine.

When you receive implant treatment, you usually end up using it for much longer than you expect. A well-placed implant can easily last 20 to 30 years.!!!!

Thanks to competition among many dental clinics, implant fees have come down a lot, which has provided a good opportunity for everyone to receive implant treatment. However, competition driven by excessively low fees has also acted as a barrier that prevents people from encountering good implant products and bone graft materials.

Straumann implants are, as the saying goes, the world’s number one implant company. It is a huge company headquartered in Switzerland, and based on that, it operates ITI (International Team of Implantology) and even provides guidelines to dentists around the world on how implant treatment should be performed.

As quality of life improves, the number of implants that will enter my mouth for life is gradually decreasing.

One of the most precious things to me is my own body. Isn’t receiving careful treatment with better products an important value? ^^

Straumann implants, even ChatGPT chose them. Please think about it once before getting treatment.

That concludes Baek Won-seon’s dental study.

Thank you for reading this long post.