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Postoperative Infections After Dental Implant Placement: Prevalence, Clinical Features, and Treatment
Octavi Camps-Font1, Rui Figueiredo, Eduard Valmaseda-Castellón
1*Fellow of the Master degree program in Oral Surgery and Implantology, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. †Associate Professor of Oral Surgery, Professor of the Master degree program of Oral Surgery and Implantology, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Barcelona; Researcher of the IDIBELL institute, Barcelona, Spain. ‡Professor of Oral Surgery, Director of the Master degree program of Oral Surgery and Implantology, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Barcelona; Researcher of the IDIBELL institute, Barcelona, Spain. §Chairman and Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Barcelona; Coordinating investigator of the IDIBELL institute, Head of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department, Teknon Medical Center, Barcelona, Spain.
Purpose:
To determine the prevalence and describe the clinical features and treatment of patients with early infections after implant placement.
Materials And Methods:
A retrospective cohort study was performed. Postoperative infections were defined as the presence of purulent drainage and/or increasing pain and swelling in the operated area before prosthetic loading. Patient-based infection prevalences and 95% confidence intervals for implant were determined. Patients who healed, were followed up to determine implant survival and success rates.
Results:
Three hundred thirty-seven participants (1273 implants) were included. Twenty-two postoperative infections were recorded (6.5% of the patients and 1.7% of the implants). These complications were usually diagnosed within the first month, and in 17 cases (77.3%) surgical treatment was performed because of antibiotic therapy failure. Twelve implants (54.6%) in 12 patients (54.6%) failed before prosthetic loading. The survival and success rates of the infected loaded implants were 80% and 50%, respectively, with a mean follow-up of 42.9 months (SD of 10.2 months).
Conclusion:
Four to 10% of patients receiving dental implants develop postoperative infections. This complication is important because applied treatments are usually ineffective and two-thirds of the infected implants fail, most before prosthetic loading.
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