Factors influencing early dental implant failures

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford. The papers summarised in this issue of the BDJ have been selected from those ten most read published during 2016 in J Dent Res (Impact Factor 4.062 and ranked second in dentistry). Most of these papers explore the oral sciences. Those included in this section, have an increased focus on the practice of dentistry (one paper has been previously summarised in the Br Dent J – DOI: 10.1038/sj.bdj.2016.598).

Abstract

Antidepressants would appear to be as important a factor in the cause of early implant failure as smoking.

Main

Chrcanovic BR, Kisch J et al. J Dent Res 2016; 95: 995–1002

Only the taking of antidepressant drugs at the patient-level, and smoking at both the implant- and patient-level were associated with implant failure. With respect to antidepressants, several papers are cited that state those drugs which antagonise serotonin uptake (for example, citalopram) influence bone metabolism. Of note, data for this study were collected between 1980 and 2014; in the 1980s MAIOs and tricyclic depressants were used commonly to treat depression. Smoking, of course, among other effects, influences osteoblasts but also microcirculation. Bone of poor quality was not a factor in early implant failure. This was a retrospective study of 2,670 patients who had received 10,096 implants over a 30-year period in one specialist clinic. Of note 6.36% of implants were lost before reconstruction.