Prosthetic Applications of Short Dental Implants in Limited Bone Height Cases: A Review Article

The decision to rehabilitate insufficient alveolar bone height with short implants is considered an effective treatment. Complicated surgical procedures such as ridge augmentation, vestibuloplasty, and sinus lifting are usually accompanied by high risks such as membrane injury, hemorrhage, nerve affection, and increased time needed for implant treatment with unpredictable healing time. Short dental implants allow for faster treatment and decrease the need for complicated surgeries that are usually associated with standard dental implants, as in all four and all six concepts. A wide variety of short implants for replacing single, multiple, or even prosthetic rehabilitation of completely edentulous patients, either by using hybrid or overdenture prostheses, were documented by several studies. Further clinical investigations are needed to evaluate the improvement of short implant survival rate, the possibility of using short implants for patients with normal ridge height and contour, and also for patients who need maxillofacial prostheses.