How Effective Is the Tent Screw Pole Technique Compared to Other Forms of Horizontal Ridge Augmentation?

The tent screw pole technique is one of the methods available for practitioners to perform horizontal ridge augmentation to facilitate dental implant placement. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the tent screw pole technique for horizontal ridge augmentation and to compare the results with those of the tunnel technique and open ridge augmentation.

In this retrospective cohort study, 35 patients underwent horizontal ridge augmentation with the tent screw pole technique, a 1:1 ratio of mineralized freeze-dried bone allograft and particulate bovine hydroxyapatite, and a resorbable collagen membrane. The incidence of early wound dehiscence and membrane exposure, the number of courses of antibiotics and postoperative visits required for their management, and the number of sites that subsequently had successful implant placement were recorded. These parameters were compared with those in 21 patients who had undergone horizontal ridge augmentation by the tunnel technique and 31 patients who had been treated using an open procedure and a resorbable polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane in the authors' previous study (J Oral Maxillofac Surg 74:1752, 2016).

Implant placement rate was similar for all 3 methods (71 to 97%). However, there were significant differences among the 3 surgical techniques for membrane exposure and wound dehiscence (P = .0033), graft loss (P = .0256), courses of antibiotics (P = .0017), and postoperative visits (P = .0043). The PTFE method consistently had the highest rate of complications, whereas the tent screw and tunnel techniques were comparable.

All 3 techniques allowed a high rate of implant placement; however, the PTFE technique was consistently associated with increased postoperative complications compared with the other 2 methods. The tent screw technique might be more favorable than the tunnel technique in cases in which the bony deficiency is flat.