Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Oral Implants Volume 2015, Article ID 390974, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/390974
Clinical Study Fixed Dental Prosthesis on 4.2 mm Length Rough Implants: A Case Series Report after an Average Loading Time of 33 Months Yves Reingewirtz1,2 and Henri Tenenbaum1 1
Department of Periodontology, Dental Faculty, University of Strasbourg, 8 rue Sainte Elisabeth, 67000 Strasbourg, France Private Practice, Strasbourg, France
2
Correspondence should be addressed to Yves Reingewirtz;
[email protected] Received 22 March 2015; Revised 12 August 2015; Accepted 7 September 2015 Academic Editor: Warwick J. Duncan Copyright © 2015 Y. Reingewirtz and H. Tenenbaum. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Aim. Several limiting factors encourage the clinician to use short implants. Among those, the presence of limiting anatomical elements and the simplification of surgical procedures are particularly significant. The goal of this study is to analyse the opportunity to extend the use of short implants to extrashort implants with a length less than 5 mm (ESI). Materials and Methods. Seven patients (3 women, 4 men; mean age 60.4 years) received extrashort implants (Straumann Implant, Palatal Orthosystem, length 4.2 mm, diameter 4.1 or 4.8 mm) in severe resorbed edentulous posterior areas. The implants were incorporated in partially fixed dentures. The osseous stability and the attachment level were recorded after a loading period of 22 to 54 months. Results. The results demonstrated a success rate of 100%, stability in the osseous level surrounding implants (mean annual mesial and distal loss of 0.026 mm and 0.105 mm, resp.), and no significant differences in the mean attachment depth between extrashort implants and contralateral teeth or implants (3.7 mm versus 3.55 mm, SD = 0.87). Splinting ESI with natural teeth resulted in significantly more bone resorption than with other implants (𝑃 = 0.001). Conclusion. This exploratory study on the use of extrashort implants demonstrated good reliability over a loading period of 22 to 54 months.
1. Introduction Compliance with the strict rules laid down by the pioneers of modern endosseous implantology offers hope for implant survival rate above 90% [1, 2]. Breaches of these rules have been proposed by different authors, some suggesting fewer surgical procedures [3] and others seeking to reduce healing time [4] and even proposing immediate loading [5]. New materials and techniques have been designed to simplify surgical and prosthetic procedures and to benefit both practitioners and patients. In this light, the authors started using so-called short implants [6–9], in order to avoid preimplant surgeries dedicated to recreating bone volumes after the resorption process that follows every extraction [10, 11]. The clinical results using these implants showed that specific biomechanical constraints facing short implants did not affect their prognosis [12, 13] and even lead to less bone resorption and less complications than longer implants
placed in vertically augmented bone graft sites [14]. This may extend indications for implant sites with reduced bone height. The objective of the present study was to evaluate 1 crown-root ratio does not preclude reliable clinical outcomes that are comparable to those obtained with longer implants [15, 28]. This is in accordance with the results of our study and the 2.54 average crown-to-implant ratio. It may seem odd to find in the category of ≤10 mm short implants [29] much shorter implants that are twice as short (
