Success of multiple endosseous dental implant designs to second-stage surgery across study sites

A multicenter clinical study of dental implants is being conducted by the Dental Implant Clinical Research Group to investigate the influence of implant design, application, and site on clinical performance and crestal bone. This article reports on the percentage of success up to implant uncovering for different implant designs and the distribution of failures across study sites. Data from 2,847 implants placed at 32 study sites were analyzed. Percentages of success up to implant uncovering were calculated for study implants overall, by implant design, by implant design within study strata, and according to individual study sites and quartile groupings of sites based on success. Comparisons were made, with chi-square and exact tests employed where appropriate. Differences were found between the different implant designs for the study overall, and between implant designs within the different study strata. Although some implant designs were found to have generally high success across study sites, some study sites designated as having surgeons with less experience tended to have higher failure levels, and one implant design failed at higher rates in a subset of study sites. The percentage and distribution of implant failures varied across study sites and by implant design. These differences appeared to be in part related to the level of experience of the surgeons. Further investigation should focus on identification of factors that contribute to higher success in implant placement with different implant designs.