Proceedings of the 1st Consensus Conference of the German Association of Oral Implantology, Aerzen, Germany, 29th and 30th September 2010

The German Association of Oral Implantology (DGI, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Implantologie im Zahn-, Mund- und Kieferbereich e.V.) is associated with the German Society of Dental, Oral and Craniomandibular Sciences (DGZMK, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zahn-, Mund- und Kieferheilkunde e.V.), which is the scientific holding society for numerous associated and subordinated scientific workgroups and societies in the dental specialties. There are approximately 60,000 dentists in Germany, of which approximately 7300 are organised in the DGI and hence in the DGZMK. The DGI and DGZMK are in turn members of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Wissenschaftlich Medizinischer Fachgesellschaften). The DGZMK coordinates the development of scientific dental guidelines in Germany with a guideline office in Dresden. The AWMF in Germany is responsible for the development of medical and dental therapeutic guidelines1. The AWMF provides supervision, methodology, administration, registration and publication (German Medical Science) of guidelines2. The following papers present the results of a consensus conference held by the DGI in Aerzen, Germany, 29th and 30th September 2010 (Fig 1). The purpose of this conference was to develop a country-wide broad and evidence-based consensus statement for four scientific questions in dental implantology, which are published in the following. The aim was to define a therapeutic corridor for the practitioner by defining areas of solid and proven knowledge and, in contrast, areas where a definitive opinion cannot be given at the moment due to lack of data. Keywords: Guidelines, evidence based medicine, consensus conference