How Successful are Dental Implants Placed in Oncology Patients?

Objectives: Head and neck cancer treatment impacts on quality of life and implant supported oral rehabilitation can improve patient outcomes. There is, however, a lack of contemporary data reporting on implant success in this cohort. The aim of this study was to investigate success of dental implants in this group, and to identify if radiotherapy and implant site influence success.
Methods: This study involved retrospective analysis of 115 cases (376 implants) treated over 17 years (2001-2018). Data on radiotherapy dose, implant site, and rates of implant failure were collected in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Data were reprocessed in IBM® SPSS® version 23 (International Business Machines Corp.) for statistical analysis including multinomial logistic regression analysis.
Results: Findings indicate overall implant success was 97%. 32% of individuals received radiotherapy with a mean dose of 61 Gray. A multinomial logistic regression model obtained goo model fit (Pearson Chi Square 8.96, P=0.062). Computed coefficients suggested a trend towards radiotherapy, implant placement in graft and implant placement in maxilla as negatively influencing implant success, however these were not statistically significant (P>0.05).
Conclusions: The data presented here suggest good success rates for dental implants in oncology patients. The influence of radiotherapy, implant site and implant arch may influence success to a lesser degree than reported. This may relate to changes in oncology treatments, and possibly in generic implant success rates across all populations.