Marginal Bone Resorption Around Dental Implants Placed in Alveolar Socket Preserved Sites: A 5 Years Follow-up Study

The present study evaluated the clinical and radiological stability of hard and soft tissues following alveolar socket preservation (ASP) procedure with a follow-up of 5 year from implant insertion.

The initial sample consisted of seven patients who underwent single tooth extraction and ASP procedure by means of demineralized bovine bone mineral particles covered with a porcine-derived non-cross-linked collagen matrix (CM). Each patient received a submerged single implant in the healed site. Mesial and distal peri-implant marginal bone resorption (MBR) rates were assessed radiographically at 1 year (T ₁) and 5 years (T ₂) after implant placement (baseline value).

No dropouts occurred up to 5 years. At T ₁, the MBR was 0.08 ± 0.16 mm at the mesial aspect and 0.1 ± 0.12 mm at the distal aspect. This difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.867). At T ₂, the mesial MBR was 0.15 ± 0.17 mm and the distal MBR was 0.11 ± 0.14 mm, with a non-statistically significant difference (P = 0.532). Therefore, no statistically significant differences were detected comparing mesial and distal MBR at any time point. With respect to the intra-group comparisons, no differences were observed comparing the different study periods within each variable. Indeed, the comparison between T ₀, T ₁ and T ₂ was non-statistically significant at both mesial (P = 0.06) and distal (P = 0.06) aspects. After 5 years, the volume of the soft tissues appeared clinically well maintained with a natural aspect around dental implants and adjacent teeth.

ASP using demineralized bovine bone mineral in combination with CM proved to be an effective technique to maintain stable dimensional volumes of both hard and soft tissues.