MRI scans and airport security with dental implants

Where the picture can suffer

Any metal in the body makes a zone of distortion around it on the image, called an artefact. With titanium that zone is usually small and stays close to the fixture. Zirconia causes less, which is one of the minor differences covered in titanium versus ceramic implants. Whether it matters depends entirely on what is being scanned.

For scans close to the mouth, the radiology team can adjust how the images are taken to reduce the effect. They can only do that if they know in advance. Other metal in the mouth goes on the form for the same reason: crowns with a metal base, bridges, fixed brace wires and retainers bonded behind the front teeth. Metal-ceramic crowns made on non-precious alloys tend to distort more than an implant does.

Magnetic denture attachments are the exception

Some removable dentures clip onto implants with small magnets. That system is worth knowing about if it is what you have, because it is the one situation where dental work and the scanner do need managing.

The magnet sits inside the denture. Dentures come out before any head or neck scan anyway, so that part simply stays in the changing room. The problem is the counterpart screwed onto the implant, called a keeper. It is made of an alloy that a magnet attracts, and it can cause marked distortion on head and neck images. Tell the radiology department about it when the scan is booked, not on the day. Depending on the area being imaged and the keeper itself, they may be happy to go ahead, or they may ask whether a dentist can unscrew the keeper beforehand and refit it afterwards. That is a short job for a dentist who has the right driver for your system.

Ball, bar and press-stud attachments that hold overdentures without magnets are a different matter and do not carry the same concern. If you are not sure which type holds your denture, the clinic that made it can tell you in one line. The broader choice between fixed and removable designs is set out in implants versus dentures.

At the airport

Walk-through detectors are set to ignore small amounts of metal, and a dental implant is a very small amount. Most people with implants pass through without an alarm. The body scanners now common at UK and Turkish airports look at the surface of the body and clothing, not inside the mouth, so they do not show implants at all. A hand-held wand passed close to the face occasionally chirps, and that is the most anyone usually encounters.

If it does happen, say you have dental implants and open your mouth if asked. Security staff hear about hip replacements and pacemakers every day, and a tooth is not going to hold up the queue. No document is required, but having your implant card in your wallet or a photo of it on your phone makes the exchange quicker. If you are flying within days of the surgery itself, what counts is the wound, not the detector, and that is dealt with in flying after dental surgery.

The card earns its place later

The implant card, sometimes called an implant passport, is the piece of paper most people lose within a year. It records the manufacturer, the system, the size of each fixture and where it sits. For an MRI it lets you answer the safety form accurately. Years later it is what allows a dentist at home to order a replacement screw or abutment that fits, since components from one system rarely fit another; why the implant brand matters goes into that in detail.

If you came home without one, write to the clinic that placed the implants and ask for the system name, reference numbers and tooth positions in writing. A clinic that answers that request quickly is telling you something about how the rest of your aftercare will go. Keep the reply with the records you should hold, and put a copy somewhere you will find it on the day a hospital letter arrives.