Positive effect of surgical experience with implants on second-stage implant survival

This Dental Implant Clinical Research Group study defined a learning curve for dental implant placement. Implants placed by inexperienced surgeons (< 50 implants) failed twice as often as those placed by experienced surgeons (> or = 50 implants). Implants placed during the first 6, 8, 10, 12, and 16 cases were compared with all others. The greatest difference was seen between the first nine cases and all others (P = .001), with later cases failing significantly less often. Inexperienced surgeons had more failures in the first nine cases (5.9%) than more experienced surgeons (2.4%). Surgeons with little or no previous experience must expect a definite learning curve. Previous experience may transfer and result in a shallower learning curve for subsequent systems.