Five-year survival distributions of short-length (10 mm or less) machined-surfaced and Osseotite implants

In cases of reduced alveolar bone height, implants of short length (10 mm or less) may be employed although there is a perceived risk that because of their small stature they will be unable to tolerate occlusal loads and will fail to osseointegrate.

This report describes an analysis of prospective multicenter clinical studies evaluating the risk for failure of short-length implants, comparing dual acid-etched (DAE) Osseotite implants (Implant Innovations, Inc., Palm Beach Gardens, FL, USA) to machined-surfaced implants.

Admission criteria were the same for both data sets. Baseline variables of demographics including age, gender and smoking status, bone quality, location, implant dimensions, and types of prostheses were compared to ensure balance among groups. Cumulative survival rates (CSRs) were calculated with the Kaplan-Meier estimator.

The implant data included 2294 implants for the DAE series and 2597 implants for the machined-surfaced series. Patient demographics showed similar percentages of occurrence for all variables. The distributions of implants between short- and standard-length data sets for baseline variables including width, location, and restorative type were similar, qualifying these data sets for comparison of the independent variable of length. Overall, there was a 2.2% difference in 5-year CSRs between the machined-surfaced short- and the standard-length implants. For these implants a 7.1% difference was observed in the posterior maxilla and an 8.5% difference in the anterior maxilla. For DAE implants the overall difference between "standards" and "shorts" was 0.7%, which is not statistically significant.

In this analysis the difference in CSRs between short- and standard-length implants was greater for machined-surfaced implants than for DAE implants.