Dental implant prognosis in periodontally compromised partially edentulous patients

With the increasing development of implant dentistry, dental implants has become a common treatment alternative for oral rehabilitation also for the periodontitis patient who has experienced loss of parts of the dentition. Implant treatment in periodontitis-susceptible individuals is frequently debated. A question is whether this subgroup of patient susceptible to periodontitis may also show an elevated risk for peri-impalnt tissue destruction. Purpose: To determine whether there is a relationship between susceptibility to periodontitis and dental implant survival rates, the occurrence of peri-implantitis and its influence on marginal bone loss and to present the results of a meta-analysis carried out to find out whether this relationship is statistically significant. Materials and methods: PubMed search was performed in the period between 2002 -2012. Studies of >=5 years of follow-up and reporting on the outcomes of peri-implantitis and/or implant survival and/or peri-implant bone loss in patients with a history of periodontitis compared with non-periodontitis patients were searched. We carried out a meta-analysis using the random-effects model. Results: All of the 13 studies showed better implant survival rates for non-periodontitis patients' subgroup. Six studies out of 7 reported statistically significantly higher marginal bone loss and prevalence of peri-implantitis among periodontally compromised patients. Our meta-analysis did not find dental implant survival rates to be significantly lower among periodontally compromised patients (p=0.99), but revealed a history of periodontitis to be significantly related to the higher prevalence of peri-implantitis (p0.001). Conclusions: Implant survival among periodontally compromised patients are comparable to non-periodontitis patients. However, the resorption of marginal bone and incidence of peri-implantitis are higher in the periodontitis patients' subgroup. Keywords: dental implants, periodontitis, prognosis