Long-term marginal bone loss around single dental implants affected by current and past smoking habits

To compare the long-term marginal implant bone loss, survival, and radiographic success of single dental implants among current, past smokers, and nonsmokers.

The study was based on a consecutive cohort of patients who received single implants between 2 adjacent natural teeth. Only implants with 5 or more years follow-up were considered with no less than 3 follow-up radiographs at different time points with at least 1 year interval between radiographs. All radiographs were analyzed for changes in marginal bone loss.

The study consisted of 64 patients, ranging in age from 18 to 78 (mean, 45 years) with a total of 64 single implants. Average follow-up time was 6.14 years (range, 5-14). Success rate was 93.75%; 4 implant failed. Two of the failures were due to mechanical neck brake and 2 resulted from peri-implantitis and bone loss. Survival rates were not related to smoking habits. The mean marginal bone loss measured for all implants was 0.145 mm during the first year, 0.07 mm per year during years 1 throughout 5 and 0.026 mm per year from the sixth year till the end of follow-up. Current smokers demonstrated higher marginal bone loss during all time intervals than former smokers and both demonstrated higher marginal bone loss during all time intervals than nonsmokers.

Our results reaffirm the relation between smoking and peri-implant bone loss. Former smokers still demonstrated an increase in marginal bone loss as compared with nonsmokers. There was no difference in implant survival in relation to smoking habits.