8-10 year follow-up survival of dental implants in maxillae with or without autogenous bone graft reconstruction

The aim of this research was to ascertain the survival of implants installed in the atrophic maxillae of patients treated with or without autogenous bone graft at 8 to 10 years of follow-up. A retrospective study was conducted using clinical and imaging analysis. 42 adult patients were selected, treated with osseointegrated implants in a fixed maxillary prosthesis model with suprastructure using 6 to 8 implants; of these, 22 underwent reconstruction with a bone graft taken from the anterior iliac crest and 20 were treated without any type of bone graft. The sequence of removal, installation and management of the grafts followed routine patterns, and the implant installation and prosthesis preparation also followed parameters established in previous publications. Variables of implant survival, stage of loss and bone stability of the implants were analyzed with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, considering a value of P<0.05 to obtain statistical significance. After 8 to 10 years of follow-up the 306 implants installed in the 42 patients were evaluated. 162 implants were in the bone graft group, where 8.0% of implants were lost in the pre-loading stage, 3.7% in the post-loading stage and 88.7% had complete survival. In the group without bone graft, 6.17% were lost in the pre-loading stage, 1.85% in the post-loading stage and 90.97% had complete survival. There was no significant difference in the survival of the implants between the two groups (P=0.082). Cervical bone loss between the groups showed no significant differences either (P=0.241). The implants in grafted maxillae with cases of severe maxillary atrophy are just as efficient as implants installed in maxillae without bone graft.