Purpose: To assess the implant failure rate and clinical and radiographic outcomes of implants affected by peri-implantitis that received surgical treatment.
Materials and methods: A systematic search was conducted of three databases (PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library) to identify studies that examined implant failure and biological outcomes after surgical peri-implantitis treatment, including ≥ 10 patients and reporting on a follow-up period of at least 12 months. Data and risk of bias were assessed qualitatively and quantitively. Surgical modalities were subdivided into reconstructive, non-reconstructive and combined. Meta-analyses were performed for implant failure, marginal bone level and probing pocket depth at 12 and 36 months with the respective subset of available data for each time and endpoint.
Results: A total of 45 studies with 3,463 treated implants were included in the quantitative evaluation. Meta-analyses revealed low implant failure rates of 1.2% (95% confidence interval 0.4%, −2.1%) and 4.2% (95% confidence interval 1.0%, −8.8%) at 12 and 36 months, respectively. No significant difference between the subgroups was observed at 12 months. At 36 months, reconstructive modalities showed a significantly lower implant failure rate (1.0%; 95% confidence interval 0.0%, 5.0%; P = 0.04, χ2(1) = 4.1) compared to non-reconstructive modalities (8.0%; 95% confidence interval 2.0%, 18.0%). The mean probing pocket depth was 3.71 mm (95% confidence interval 3.48, 3.94 mm) at 12 months and 3.63 mm (95% confidence interval 3.02, 4.24 mm) at 36 months. The mean marginal bone loss was 3.31 mm (95% confidence interval 2.89, 3.74 mm) at 12 months and 2.38 mm (95% confidence interval 1.01, 3.74 mm) at 36 months. No significant differences between the modalities were observed for bleeding on probing after either of these time points. Cumulative interventions during supportive therapy were reported in 9% of the studies.
Conclusion: Surgical treatment of peri-implantitis results in a low implant failure rate in the short and medium term. No differences were noted between the different interventions with regard to failure rate. Surrogate therapeutic endpoints were improved after treatment, without significant differences between the different modalities. Therapeutic success and/or disease resolution and cumulative interventions during supportive therapy are seldom reported in the literature, but limited long-term outcomes are documented consistently.