The purpose of this clinical 5-year retrospective study was to evaluate the success rates of delayed and immediate implant placement into fresh extraction sockets with, or not, immediate load by the Provisionalization.
Method:
One thousand and twenty patients (809 men and 211 women, aged between 19 and 75 years) had teeth extracted and a total of 2130 dental implants placed in healed sites (2091) or fresh sockets (39). All surgical and prosthetic procedures were performed by six experienced dentists that followed strict clinical protocols. Pre-surgical evaluation and planning included clinical and radiographic assessment. A complete examination of oral tissues was carried out for each patient. Panoramic radiographs, complete blood count, rate of glucose and coagulation test were performed for primary investigation. All subjects were examined by pre-operative computed tomography and the surgery was planned according to a computer-assisted surgical protocol to define the width and length of each implant. Among 2130 implants, 54 received a provisional fixed bridge at the same day of the surgery, in the others 2076 a two stage technique was used. The aforementioned variables were statistically tested as possible predictors of implant failure (chi-square, Fisher exact test, p<0.005).
Result:
A total of 2130 implants were evaluated. The cumulative survival rate was 97% (96.2% to 97.7%) with confidence interval 95%. Sixty implants failed within 1 year after surgery, and four implants failed in the second year. After that, there were no further implant failures. The failure rate was 2.6% (n=1) in immediate implant placement and 7.4% (n=4) when the implants were immediately loaded, however there was no significant association between implant failure and immediate implant (p=0.75) and immediate loading (p=0.12).
Conclusion: The results obtained in this retrospective study revealed that the loading protocol or immediate implant placement did not influence the failure rates.