Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A 7-year Follow-up of 93 Immediately Loaded Titanium Dental Implants

2005; Allen Press; Volume: 31; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1563/0-730.1

1548-1336

Marco Degidi, Adriano Piattelli,

Dental materials and restorations

Abstract Recently, several experimental and clinical investigations found that immediately loaded implants obtained satisfactory levels of osseointegration with high success percentages. Only a few long-term studies of immediately loaded implants have been reported in the literature. The aim of this study was a 7-year clinical and radiographic follow-up of 93 immediately loaded dental implants in human patients. Eleven patients were consecutively enrolled in this study. A total of 7 full and 9 partial edentulous arches were rehabilitated. Patients presented a completely edentulous mandible (n = 6), a completely edentulous maxilla (n = 1), mandibular posterior edentulous areas (n = 5), or a posterior maxillary edentulous area (n = 1). Patients were rehabilitated with a bar and an overdenture (n = 4), a provisional prosthesis of 3 to 12 elements (n = 11), or a metal-ceramic bridge of 10 elements (n = 1). A total of 93 implants were inserted and loaded within a 24-hour time frame. Six implants failed in the first year after loading. No more failures were observed in the following 6 years, and all the other implants were well integrated from a clinical and radiographic point of view. The cumulative success rate at 7 years was 93.5%, and the prostheses survival rate was 98.5%. The mean marginal bone loss was 0.6 mm after the first year and 1.1 mm at the 7-year evaluation. Primary stability is one of the most important parameters in immediately loaded implants because it avoids micromotion at the bone-implant interface. Four of the 6 failures in our patients occurred in partially edentulous patients; an excessive load applied to these small bridges could be the reason for the failure. Also, the bone quality is important, for 3 of our failed implants had been inserted in D3 bone. Our clinical and radiographic results have shown that these immediately loaded implants have remained osseointegrated for a long period. Our results point to the possibility of using the immediate loading technique in selected and well-informed cases.