The present invention provides a device and method for facilitating the placement of dental implants by use of an
implant placement locator and a sequentially sized
drill orientation tube series. The
implant placement locator disclosed herein comprises a visible radiolucent moldable grid, a set of radiopaque markers located at known intervals within the moldable grid, and a plastic sheeting encasing the visible radiolucent moldable grid and the radiopaque markers. The method of the present invention comprises obtaining a radiograph of a patient's mouth with the
implant placement locator overlaying the patient's dental
ridge and then transferring reference points as indicated by the location of the radiopaque markers relative to existing teeth and other oral structures to a dental stone model. In a preferred embodiment,
drill bits are directed in the desired trajectory into the patient's available lower or upper
jaw bone by use of
drill orientation tubes in combination with the
implant placement locator. A sequentially sized set of spacers is provided having sequentially sized inside diameters to direct varying
diameter drills.
Drill guide parallelism is thus provided by the invention.