Nobel implant clearances and recalls — the public record

Why a page like this exists

Almost no dental clinic publishes the recall history of the implants it places. The reasoning is obvious — it sounds alarming, and no competitor is doing it either.

We think that reasoning is wrong, for a straightforward reason: the record is public anyway. The FDA database is open, and any patient who finds a recall notice on their own, having read a clinic site that presented an unblemished picture, has learned two things — one about the implant and one about the clinic.

So here is the record, in full, with what each item actually concerned.

What a medical device recall is

First, the word, because it does not mean what it does for cars.

A device recall is a correction or removal action, and the great majority are narrow: a specific batch, a labelling error, a packaging fault, a change to the instructions. A recall does not generally mean a product family is unsafe, and it does not usually mean anything has been removed from the market.

Classifications indicate the potential for harm. Class II — the classification of both items below — covers situations where use might cause temporary or medically reversible consequences, and where serious harm is remote.

The recalls on the record

The FDA device recall database records 19 recall events for Nobel Biocare between 2003 and 2025. That is the count of distinct actions; they generated 76 individual product records, because one action covering a range of sizes is filed once per product.

Nineteen actions over twenty-two years, across a portfolio containing thousands of catalogue items, is a normal post-market record — and arguably a reassuring one, because it is what surveillance looks like when it is working. What matters is not the number but what each one was.

Grouped by what actually went wrong:

Labelling that stated the wrong dimension — the largest group, and the one with the most direct surgical consequence. Implant packages whose label gave a different length or diameter from the device inside: NobelReplace Tapered Groovy (2007), Replace Select Tapered (2016), NobelActive Internal NP (2019), NobelParallel CC NP (2019), NobelReplace CC PMC (2020).

Packaging and the sterile barrier — a packaging material leaving a residue on implant surfaces (2015), a seal failure at a supplier affecting guided drills (2019), and the N1 moulding defect described below (2025).

The wrong component in the box — healing abutments of the wrong size (2019), and abutment packages containing the wrong screw (2019, two actions).

The device itself — the group that is not about packaging, and the reason the framing on this page changed. A 2022 recall of N1 TiUltra TCC NP 3.5 × 13 mm concerned a burr on the implant presenting an aspiration risk to the patient during surgery. A 2021 recall covered NobelProcera implant crowns not manufactured to specification.

Instruments, software and documentation — a radiographic template (2003), a surgical console and its iPad software (2013), an abutment retrieval instrument (2015), an incorrect drill protocol in an instructions-for-use document (2016), and a driver engagement problem traced to an incorrect offset gauge (2021).

Two are worth setting out in full, because they are the ones a patient is most likely to encounter referenced elsewhere.

N1 TiUltra packaging (2025, Class II)

Certain Nobel Biocare N1 TiUltra TCC RP products were recalled because a manufacturing defect in the plastic packaging component holding the OsseoShaper could produce a sharp protrusion capable of piercing the blister — breaching the sterile barrier.

What it concerned: the packaging. Not the implant design, not the titanium, not the surface, not the connection.

Why it matters: a compromised sterile barrier means a product that cannot be assumed sterile, and sterility is not negotiable in implant surgery. The correct response is exactly what happened — identify the affected lots, remove them, and require clinics to check.

What a clinic should do: check lot numbers against the recall notice, inspect packaging on arrival, and never use a device whose blister integrity is in doubt.

NobelParallel CC labelling (2020)

A specific lot of NobelParallel CC NP 3.75 × 10 mm implants — lot 12129104 — carried an outer label incorrectly stating the length as 7 mm. The implants were 10 mm.

What it concerned: a labelling mix-up. The implants themselves were correctly manufactured.

Why it matters: a surgeon planning to the label rather than the device could place an implant three millimetres longer than intended. In the lower jaw, three millimetres is the difference between clearing a nerve and not.

What a clinic should do: verify REF, LOT and stated dimensions against the sterile blister and the outer box, every time. This is why that check is a step rather than a formality.

The clearances

For completeness, the regulatory footing of the systems described on this site:

• NobelZygoma TiUltra — FDA 510(k) K243834, cleared as substantially equivalent on 25 August 2025, filed by Nobel Biocare AB, Gothenburg
• Nobel Biocare N1 — FDA 510(k) clearance announced December 2021
• S Series — FDA 510(k) K252197, which also carries the restriction that On1 Base and On1 Base Xeal must not be used with S Series implants
• NobelActive, NobelParallel and NobelReplace — each cleared under their own 510(k) submissions

One point of language: 510(k) clearance is not FDA “approval.” Clearance establishes substantial equivalence to an already-marketed device. It is the correct regulatory route for implants and it is a meaningful review — but a clinic writing “FDA approved” about a dental implant is using the wrong word, and it is a reasonable thing to notice.

Alongside clearances sit the quality certifications: ISO 13485 audited by BSI, ISO 14001, EU MDR quality system approval, MDSAP and UKCA. These establish that manufacturing follows an audited system. They do not establish that any individual implant will not fail.

What a patient should take from this

Not that these implants are risky. Nineteen actions over twenty-two years, across a portfolio placed in millions of patients and nearly all of them narrow batch corrections, is a normal post-market record — it indicates surveillance that works. A manufacturer with no recalls on a portfolio this size would be the more worrying finding, because it would mean nobody was looking.

What is worth taking is the practical part:

1. Lot checking is not bureaucracy. Both recalls were caught by, and resolved through, batch traceability. That is the system functioning.
2. Your record should include LOT and REF. If a recall ever affects a batch you were treated with, that is how anyone finds out.
3. Ask your clinic how they handle recall notices. A clinic that can describe its process has one.

Where to check for yourself

The FDA device recall database is public, searchable and available as an open API — the figures on this page come from it directly rather than from a manufacturer summary, and the source link at the foot of the page is the query itself, so you can run it and get the same answer.

It is searchable by article number. If you have your REF from your implant record, you can find out whether that article was ever subject to a recall action — and then check your LOT against the notice, because a recall applies to specific batches rather than to every implant of that type.

We would rather you checked than took our word for it — which is, in the end, the whole argument for publishing this page.