Implant Mandibular Overdentures Retained by Immediately Loaded Implants: A 1-Year Randomized Trial Comparing Patient-Based Outcomes Between Mini Dental Implants and Standard-Sized Implants

Purpose: The aim of this 1-year randomized trial was to determine the stability and the magnitude of the effect of converting patients' conventional mandibular dentures to implant overdentures (IODs) on their satisfaction and oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL). The IODs were retained either with two immediately loaded interconnected standard-diameter implants or with four immediately loaded mini dental implants (MDIs). Materials and Methods: Fifty completely edentulous subjects complaining about insufficient retention of their mandibular dentures were randomly assigned to two groups; 25 patients received IODs retained with four MDIs and 25 patients received IODs retained with two standard-sized tissue level (STL) interconnected implants. All IODs were opposed by conventional maxillary dentures. Patients rated their satisfaction on a 100-mm visual analog scale (VAS) and their quality of life on a denture-specific short version of the oral health impact profile (OHIP-20) before assignment, and after 3 and 12 months. A two-way mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to assess the change in time and its interaction with treatment mode on patients' overall satisfaction ratings, the total OHIP-20, and their specific domain scores. Results: Immediate loading was possible for all the patients who received the MDIs. By contrast, the immediate loading protocol could be followed for only 15 of the patients allocated to the STL implant group. For the remaining patients, a delayed loading protocol was applied. There was a significant improvement in patients' general satisfaction between baseline and 3 months and between baseline and 12 months postoperatively (F2,44 = 81.006, P .001). This increase did not differ between the treatment groups (F4,90 = 1.838, P = .128). The results also showed a decrease in mean overall OHIP score (F2,43 = 46.863, P .001) between baseline and 3 months and between baseline and 12 months postoperatively, indicating a higher level of OHRQoL. In addition, patients scored lower 3 and 12 months after treatment than at baseline for all seven domains. This decrease did not differ between the treatment groups (F4,88 = 0.608, P = .658). Conclusion: The results suggested that in terms of patient-based outcomes, mandibular overdentures retained by immediately loaded MDIs can offer an improvement of equal magnitude with that achieved by overdentures retained by standard-sized implants. Keywords: immediate loading, mini dental implants, OHIP-20, VAS