Twenty-five years ago, an implant was something most dentists referred out and most patients had never heard of. That has changed quickly. Implants are now a routine part of general dental practice, and the patient asking about them is more often in their fifties than their eighties. Clinics that focus on the procedure, including Stubbs Dental, place them daily rather than occasionally. The numbers below show how far the treatment has moved into the mainstream, and where it still has not reached.
How many people have dental implants?
The most frequently repeated figure in the United States comes from the American Academy of Implant Dentistry, which has long estimated that roughly 3 million Americans have implants, with about 500,000 more placed each year. Treat that number as a rough order of magnitude. It has circulated for well over a decade and predates the sharpest part of the growth curve.
A dental implant, for anyone new to the term, is a titanium or zirconia post placed into the jawbone to replace a missing tooth root. A crown, bridge, or denture attaches to it.
Are dental implants becoming more common?
Sharply so. The most rigorous look at this is a 2018 study in the Journal of Dental Research by Elani and colleagues, which tracked national survey data from 1999 through 2016. Among American adults missing at least one tooth, implant prevalence rose from about 0.7 percent to roughly 5.7 percent over that period. The authors projected that under plausible growth scenarios the figure could reach somewhere between 17 and 23 percent by 2026.
Whether reality landed at the high or low end of that projection, the direction is not in dispute. Implants went from a niche specialty service to something a mid-sized general practice offers in house.
Who is most likely to get an implant?
Older adults with partial tooth loss, and disproportionately those with higher incomes. The same research found the highest prevalence among adults aged 65 to 74. Cost drives a visible income gradient, since implants sit almost entirely outside what standard dental insurance covers.
Tooth loss itself remains widespread. The CDC reports that about 1 in 6 adults aged 65 or older have lost all of their natural teeth, and adults aged 20 to 64 retain an average of roughly 25 of their 32 teeth. The gap between how many people are missing teeth and how many have implants is still enormous, which is the clearest signal that adoption has room to run.
Why doesn’t everyone with a missing tooth get an implant?
Price is the main obstacle. A single implant with its crown typically runs $3,000 to $6,000, and dental plans with annual maximums of $1,000 to $2,000 barely dent that. Full-arch treatment reaches $20,000 to $35,000 per jaw.
Clinical factors rule out or delay a smaller share of cases. Insufficient jawbone volume often means grafting first, adding several months and $400 to $1,200 per site. Uncontrolled diabetes, active periodontal disease, heavy smoking, and certain bone-modifying medications all raise failure risk enough that a careful practice will address them before placing anything.
If they are common, how reliable are they?
Well established. Systematic reviews consistently report implant survival above 90 percent at ten years, with many studies clustering near 95 percent. That track record is a large part of why general dentists became comfortable offering the procedure.
The complication worth knowing about is peri-implantitis, an inflammatory condition affecting the gum and bone around an implant. Consensus reports from the periodontal research community have placed patient-level prevalence at roughly one in five, though estimates vary widely depending on how the condition is defined. It responds to early intervention, which is why implant patients need regular maintenance visits rather than fewer of them.
Does it matter how many implants a practice places?
It does. Volume correlates with familiarity in judging bone quality, angling placement, and handling the cases that do not go to plan. A practice like Stubbs Dental that concentrates on implant dentistry will typically own its own cone beam CT scanner, the 3D imaging equipment used to map bone before surgery, rather than referring patients elsewhere for scans.
Useful questions at a consultation: how many full-arch cases the practice completes in a year, whether the same clinician handles both surgical placement and the final restoration, and what the warranty covers if an implant fails.
What the numbers mean for you
Implants are common enough to be predictable and still uncommon enough that experience varies a lot between offices. The procedure has a decades-long evidence base behind it, and the main thing separating a good outcome from a difficult one is candidate selection and planning rather than the hardware itself.
Start by finding out whether you are a candidate at all. Book a consultation that includes 3D imaging, ask for the bone assessment in plain language, and compare written treatment plans before committing to anything.
