Clinical decisions and the quality of evidence available for dental implants

As more types of implants have become available, clinicians have been faced with the task of choosing a specific implant from a wide array of options for a given clinical situation, which has led to an ever-increasing need for clinical evidence to help clinicians choose an implant. This article highlights the need for clinicians to look beyond the claims proposed by manufacturers because several of those claims are not substantiated by randomized controlled trials but by in vitro data alone. Recent advances in clinical evidence-based decision portals might enable busy clinicians to adopt an evidence-based approach to choosing implant systems. Also, the standardization of study-reporting criteria might enable comparisons across implant systems in the future.