Indications for oral implantology in a referral clinic. A three-year retrospective analysis of 737 patients with 1176 implants

Abstract

The following study reviews patients from the Department of Oral Surgery and Stomatology at the University of Berne undergoing implant therapy. Between 2000 and 2002, 737 patients received 1176 ITI screw-type implants. At least 70% of these patients were 50 years or older. The main reason for tooth loss in this group was often periodontitis, followed by carious, periapical infection and root fractures. Only 15% of the patients were younger than 30 years. They had lost their teeth mainly due to trauma or agenesis of teeth. This study reports a trend towards treatment of partially edentulous patients (>90%), with single tooth gaps (>50%) being the most frequent indication for implant therapy. The analysis also demonstrated the importance of augmentation procedures prior to implant placement. Almost 40% of the implant cases required either ridge augmentation or sinus lift procedures. The GBR technique was frequently utilized in the anterior maxilla, especially with bone defects resulting from dental trauma. Data also showed that with these augmentation procedures more implants were inserted in the maxilla (53%) than in the mandible. During the healing or early loading phase only six implants out of 1176 were lost, resulting in an early failure rate of 0.51%. Our study has demonstrated that a high level of implant success can be achieved with the ITI system when using a strict selection criteria and stringent operating protocols.