A 4-year report after a early loading of 6.5 mm
agosto 30, 2012 in Articoli, Carico Immediato, Impianti Corti
Immediate versus early loading of 6.5 mm-long flapless-placed single implants: a 4-year after loading report of a split-mouth randomised controlled trial
Gioacchino Cannizzaro, Pietro Felice, Michele Leone, Vittorio Ferri, Paolo Viola, Marco Esposito
- Purpose: To evaluate the medium-term effectiveness of 6.5 mm-long flapless-placed single implants immediately or early loaded at 6 weeks.
- Materials and methods: Thirty patients received two single NanoTite external hex Biomet 3i implants each, which were then randomly allocated to be immediately or early loaded according to a split- mouth design. Implants had to be inserted with a minimum torque of >40 Ncm. Provisional crowns were put in slight occlusal contact and replaced by definitive crowns 3 months after loading. Patients were followed for 4 years after loading. Outcome measures were implant failures, biological and biomechanical complications, peri-implant marginal bone level changes, and patient preference. Results: Twenty-nine implants were immediately loaded and 31 early loaded. Four years after load- ing, no drop-outs occurred. One implant failed in each group within 2 months after loading. Seven patients experienced complications at immediately loaded implants and 6 at early loaded implants. There were no statistically significant differences between groups for implant losses, complications, mean marginal bone level changes and patient preference.
- Conclusions: Flapless-placed 6.5 mm-long single implants can be immediately loaded and remain successful up to 4 years after loading. Even longer follow-ups are still needed to evaluate the long- term prognosis of short implants.
- Conflict-of-interest statement: This study was partially supported by a grant from Biomet 3i, which also provided free implants and related prosthetic components. However the data belonged to the authors and by no means did the manufacturer interfere with the conduct of the trial or the publica- tion of its results.