Present clinical applications of osseointegrated percutaneous implants

Altogether, 389 screws of commercially pure titanium have been inserted at various locations in the facial skeleton of 174 patients. The indications for treatment have been stable anchorage of an external hearing aid or a facial episthesis, in the latter case to restore the facial contours after congenital disorders or status after trauma or cancer surgery. All implants have been inserted in a two-stage procedure, the first being anchorage of the titanium elements in the bone, the second, minimally 3 months later, being establishment of a permanent skin penetration. The outcome of every inserted implant has been analyzed. Only six implants failed to become integrated in bone and had to be removed. Five of these failures occurred in previously irradiated bone, where the success rate was estimated to 85.3 percent. In nonirradiated bone, 354 of 355 inserted implants became osseointegrated, i.e., anchored in bone in a stable manner. The soft tissues were without any adverse reactions in 92 percent of the 951 clinical observations, whereas potentially serious skin complications were observed in only 2.8 percent. Presently, the longest clinical follow-up is 8 years, and 37 implants have been followed for more than 5 years. We believe that this clinical material is the first in which an uneventful bone anchorage and skin penetration have been demonstrated in consecutively operated upon clinical cases. The implants used for anchoring an external hearing aid were also successful in the sense that the patients gained 15 dB (average) in hearing threshold and showed a significantly improved discrimination score. The implants inserted to hold facial epistheses resulted in considerably improved retention and a good cosmetic outcome for the patients.