Crestal Bone Loss and Oral Implants

Background A consensus meeting was arranged to critically analyze whether the high figures of peri-implantitis at machined implants that recently have been reported in the literature are valid also for modern implants. Purpose The aims of this paper were to present the outcomes from the consensus meeting and to evaluate recent long-term clinical studies on modern implants with regard to frequency of peri-implant infection. Materials and Methods Ten different studies of three modern implant brands of moderately rough surfaces with 10-year or longer follow-up times were found through a PubMed and manual search. Results It was concluded that bleeding on probing or probing depths are weak indicators of crestal bone loss (CBL); that CBL occurs for many other reasons than infection; that implant-, clinician-, and patient-related factors contribute to CBL; and that modern oral implants outperform older devices. Based on a literature search, the frequency of implants with reported peri-implant infection and significant bone loss leading to implant removal or other surgical intervention was on average 2.7% during 7 to 16 years of function. Conclusion The summed frequency of peri-implantitis and implant failure is commonly less than 5% over 10 years of follow-up for modern implants when using established protocols