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Are short dental implants (<10 mm) effective? a meta-analysis on prospective clinical trials
Alberto Monje1, Hsun-Liang Chan, Jia-Hui Fu
1Department of Periodontics and Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Background:
This study aims to compare the survival rate of short (<10 mm) and standard (≥10 mm) rough-surface dental implants under functional loading.
Methods:
An electronic literature search using PubMed and Medline databases was conducted. Prospective clinical human trials, published in English from January 1997 to July 2011, that examined dental implants of <10 mm with a 12-month follow-up were included in this meta-analysis. The following data were retrieved from the included articles: the number of implants, implant dimensions, implant locations, types of prostheses, follow-up periods, and implant survival rates. Kaplan-Meier survival estimates and the hazard rates were analyzed and compared between short and standard implants.
Results:
Thirteen studies were selected, examining 1,955 dental implants, of which 914 were short implants. Short dental implants had an estimated survival rate of 88.1% at 168 months, when standard dental implants had a similar estimated survival rate of 86.7% (P = 0.254). The peak failure rate of short dental implants was found to occur between 4 and 6 years of function. This occurred at an earlier time point compared with standard dental implants, where the peak failure rate occurred between 6 and 8 years of function.
Conclusions:
This study shows that in the long term, implants of <10 mm are as predictable as longer implants. However, they fail at an earlier stage compared with standard implants.
