Statistics have shown that risk of dental implant failure is about five percent for lower jaw implants and ten percent for upper jaw implants. But one of the most confusing aspects of dental implant failure is that in one person having multiple implants, perhaps all but one of the implants will be successful. There has been no way, to this point, to determine what causes selective dental implant failure.
Some dental surgeons have suggested that this kind of dental implant failure is the result of bacteria present in the jawbone before an implant is inserted; when the implant is screwed into the bone, it unleashes the bacteria and turns them loose in the tissue surrounding the implant. As long as the other implants are placed in bacteria free bone, they will heal cleanly and quickly, but the germ-infested implant will eventually become inflamed, never healing correctly, and the implant will eventually fail.
dental implant