Dental implants are in most situations the best option to replace missing teeth. They have a success rate of close to 100% but as with everything in life sometimes things do not work and they fail. Dental Implant failure is a reality and can unfortunately is not always possible to predict. There are certain factors which would make you more at risk of dental implant failure such as smoking, diabetes and taking certain medications but sometimes it can happy in healthy patients for no apparant reason.
A dental implant will either fail early or late. For a dental implant to fail early means that after it is placed into the jaw it does not integrate and an infection develops around the area. If this occurs the dental implant would be removed to allow the area to heal and then a new implant can be placed. If this occurs then apart from the inconvenience of treatment being prolonged it is not usually a major issue.
If a dental implant has late failure then this means that it fails after the restoration has been placed and it could be many years later. Again if the dental implant fails late it needs to be removed; usually there will be more bone loss associated with this type of failure and it may be more difficult to place another implant.
Dental implants normally work very well and the same way that your normal teeth require regular checking and cleaning the dental implants require to be checked regularly and cleaned regularly to help prevent failure.