In the 1950s, Swedish surgeon, Professor Per-Ingvar Bränemark, discovered that titanium screws could bond directly to living tissue, enabling the long-term replacement of a tooth on a solid artificial root. This is sometimes called osseointegration. In 1965, the first implants were placed in the mouth of a Swedish man. He still has them today. Since the 1980s, the technique has spread throughout the world and has proven its worth in hundreds of thousands of patients. Today, implantology is enhanced with other therapeutic approaches: filling materials, bone grafts, implants with specific shapes other than a screw or cylinder.