A multi-center Retrospective Study Comparing Survival Rates of Short Dental Implants and Ungrafted Transcrestal Sinus Floor Elevation Procedure with Longer Implants.

Objectives: Investigating whether or not the use of short dental implants (<10 mm) results in similar survival rates to longer implants (≥10 mm) in combination with crestal sinus lifting procedures without grafting.
Methods: Twenty partially edentulous patients in one or both maxillary posterior segments, treated with either short dental implants (Group A) or had a preoperative transcrestal sinus floor elevation (TSFE) procedure without bone graft (Group B), were retrospectively enrolled in this study. Patients were 15 females and 5 males; the mean age, at the time of implant placement, was 42.09 ± 6.96 years for group A and 39.22 ± 6.9 for group B , ranging between 30 to 54 years.
Based on periapical radiographs obtained with the paralleling technique, the preoperative residual alveolar heights were judged to be less than 10 mm until 7 mm.
Postoperatively, the amount of new radiopacity between the sinus floor and alveolar crest of group B cases was then measured from the mesial and distal surfaces of each implant.
In total, 11 implants were placed for Group A and 9 implants were placed for Group B.

Results: After a mean follow-up period of 13.9 ± 9.4 month for group A, and 12.5 ± 6.13 for group B, with some implants up to 2.5 years in duty, a survival rate of 100% was reported for both groups. Mean bone levels, for group B, at implant placement were 8.58 ± 0.81 mm and, after 1 year, were 10.8 ± 0.85 mm.
Conclusions: Within the limitation of this retrospective clinical study, the results confirmed the reliability of both, the TSFE without grafting procedure and the use of short dental implants in posterior maxilary edentulous spaces of reduced heights.