How this guide is written, checked and kept up to date
Editorial policy · version 1 · October 2026 · Next review: April 2027 · Changes to this policy are dated in the corrections log.
Who stands behind this guide?
One person, with a registration number you can look up: Dr. Fernando Giovanella, Dental Surgeon (Cirurgião-Dentista), oral and maxillofacial surgeon, CRO-SC 8237, Blumenau, Brazil.12 I treat the patients these pages are written for, and I read every sentence before it goes live. Nothing clinical is published on this site that I haven't approved.
In 1997 an editorial in JAMA proposed four standards for medical information on the internet: who wrote it, where the facts come from, who owns and pays for it, and when it was posted and last updated.3 Twenty-nine years later, a careful reader still wants those four answers first. This page gives all four — and then the ones a patient flying to another country has the right to ask on top.
Who writes each page, and who reviews it?
Each page is built from three things: my answers to the questions patients actually ask, the clinic's own documents, and the primary sources listed at the end of that page. I review the result and approve it. The line at the top of every page — Reviewed and approved by Dr. Fernando Giovanella, CRO-SC 8237 — is the record of that.
"Reviewed" is a specific claim here, so here is what it covers. I read every clinical statement. I check every number against the source it cites. Where a page says "in my practice" or "my plan", it describes what I actually do. No one else signs clinical content on this site, and no implant manufacturer reviews a page before it's published.
Where do the facts and numbers come from?
From the source itself, read on a date we write down. A survival rate comes from the systematic review that pooled the studies — not from a press release about it, not from a clinic page that repeats it. A regulatory clearance comes from the regulator's database, not the manufacturer's brochure. A crime rate comes from the body that counts the deaths. Every page lists its sources by number, with the date each one was read, so you can open the same page we did.
Three rules sit under that. A number without a source doesn't go on the page. When two sources disagree, the page says so instead of keeping the kinder one. And the figures you'll read on survival and complications are the studies', not mine: I don't publish my own results here, because a surgeon's own numbers, unaudited, aren't something you can check.
Sentences without a number describe how a procedure works in general. I review those too, and they're not a promise about any one case — yours included.
How often is the guide reviewed?
Every page shows, at the end, the month it was last reviewed, and that date moves only when I've actually re-read the page — never by a script. Between reviews, a page is reopened the moment a source it leans on changes: a new systematic review, a new regulation, a clearance granted or withdrawn. On top of that there's a fixed cycle — every six months — with the next date printed beside the last one.
A page found to be wrong doesn't wait for the cycle. It's corrected the day the error is confirmed; the section on corrections says how.
What won't you find in this guide — and why not?
No prices, no patient names, no star ratings, no comparison with another surgeon or another country, and no case image used as bait. Part of that is my choice. Most of it is the rule I practice under: Brazil's Code of Dental Ethics bars a dentist from advertising prices, free services or payment terms; from the paired-image comparison that dental advertising leans on, when it's used as a lure; and from identifying a patient, unless the patient consents and it doesn't serve to promote the dentist.4 Advertising a specialty you don't hold is a breach too — the ones on these pages are the ones registered against my number.1
What you will find are images of cases I treated myself. A 2019 resolution of the Federal Council of Dentistry allows a dentist to publish images of the diagnosis and the final result of their own cases, with the patient's prior written consent.5 Every case image in this guide is mine, is there with that signed consent, and is there to show what the procedure does — not to sell it.
Stars are missing for a plainer reason: a star isn't something you can check. A reference is.
Does the author have any conflicts of interest?
Yes, and here they are. I'm a paid research-and-development consultant to Dentoflex, a Brazilian dental implant manufacturer. I'm the creator of SkinGuide Zygoma®, a registered trademark in Brazil.6 Two surgical instruments of my design have utility-model applications pending at Brazil's patent office.6
What that means for how you read these pages: where a page describes SkinGuide Zygoma®, it's describing my own approach, under my own trademark — read it knowing that. The implant systems these pages name, Neodent and S.I.N., are the ones I use in surgery; neither is the manufacturer I consult for. I don't rank them, and I don't claim one is clinically better than another.
No implant manufacturer paid for or reviewed this guide.
I think I've found an error. What do I do, and what happens next?
Write to atendimento@fernandogiovanella.com, or to the clinic's WhatsApp, +55 47 99782-2642, and name the page and the sentence. You'll have a reply within five business days. If you're right, the page is corrected and the correction is dated on the page itself — what changed, and when — so the error isn't quietly painted over. A factual error is fixed the day it's confirmed, not at the next review.
If what you've found is a difference of reading — a colleague who weighs a study differently — you get a reply too, and where the difference could change a patient's decision, the page says that both readings exist.
Corrections log. None yet — version 1, October 2026.
Is anything on these pages paid for?
No. This site carries no advertising, no sponsored content and no affiliate links. The clinic earns from treating patients; nobody pays to appear on these pages, and the clinic takes nothing from a hotel, an airline or a transport company. Where a page names a business — a hospital, a hotel, an implant maker — it's because you'd want to know who they are.
Is this guide a consultation?
No. It's education, written so you can ask sharper questions — of me, or of any surgeon. Nothing on these pages is a diagnosis, a plan or a promise about your case. Whether zygomatic implants are even the right option for you is decided only after your CBCT has been read, and confirmed only when I examine you in person. Your own dentist's opinion counts too, before you travel and after you're home; if something here contradicts what they told you, bring us both the question. two dentists, two opinions
What happens to the data I send, such as my CBCT?
It's read by me, kept by the clinic, and governed by Brazilian law — and the full answer has a page of its own, the privacy notice: who sees your scan, where it's stored and for how long, which companies touch it on the way, what runs in your browser, and what you can ask us to do with it. The short version: your scan is opened only with your consent, and for one purpose — to tell you whether and how you can be treated — and nothing that tracks you runs in the browser on these pages.
Which pages does this policy cover?
Every English page of the guide for international patients:
- Zygomatic implants for international patients
- Not enough bone for implants
- After you fly home
- Blumenau travel guide
- this policy, the privacy notice and the written warranty
New pages join this list the day they go live.
Who answers when I write to the clinic?
Andreza does, at the clinic in Blumenau, in English, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Brasília time (UTC−3), with a written reply the same business day. Anything clinical is answered by me, in my words. New conversations may first be answered by the clinic's virtual assistant, at any hour: it explains how things work and passes you to Andreza when you ask for a person, when you send files, or when something can't wait. It doesn't read scans or give opinions about your own case, and no decision about your case is made by it. More on the assistant, in the privacy notice
References
- Santa Catarina Regional Dental Council (CRO-SC) — public registry search (accessed 7 October 2026). https://cro-sc.implanta.net.br/servicosonline/Publico/ConsultaInscritos/
- Federal Council of Dentistry (CFO), Brazil — public registry search (accessed 7 October 2026). https://website.cfo.org.br/consulta-inscritos/
- Silberg WM, Lundberg GD, Musacchio RA. Assessing, controlling, and assuring the quality of medical information on the Internet: Caveant lector et viewor — let the reader and viewer beware. JAMA. 1997;277(15):1244–5. Editorial. doi:10.1001/jama.1997.03540390074039 · PMID 9103351 (accessed 8 October 2026). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9103351/
- Conselho Federal de Odontologia. Código de Ética Odontológica (Resolução CFO-118/2012), arts. 43–44, with the changes of Resolução CFO-271/2025 (accessed 8 October 2026). https://website.cfo.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/codigo_etica.pdf · https://sistemas.cfo.org.br/visualizar/atos/RESOLU%C3%87%C3%83O/SEC/2025/271
- Conselho Federal de Odontologia. Resolução CFO-196/2019, de 29 de janeiro de 2019, arts. 2–4 (accessed 8 October 2026). https://website.cfo.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Resolu%c3%a7%c3%a3o-CFO-196-2019.pdf
- National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), Brazil — trademark registration no. 937121835, SkinGuide Zygoma® (class 10; granted 21 July 2026, RPI 2898); utility-model applications BR 20 2022 007476 9 (cannulated drill system) and BR 20 2026 010854 0 (zygomatic flap retractor) (status as held in the author's records, August 2026). https://busca.inpi.gov.br/pePI/
About this guide
Reviewed and approved by Dr. Fernando Giovanella, CRO-SC 8237 · Updated October 2026 · Next review: April 2027
Where the facts come from. This page is the method behind the guide, so it carries few facts of its own: the two public registries, the 1997 JAMA standards, the two rules of the dental council, and the trademark and patent records — all under References, each with its date. Everything else is a commitment of the clinic, and the page above says where each one is held to.
Found a mistake on this page? The corrections section above applies to it too.