Predicting the outcome of bone grafting for dental implants based on the type of bone graft

Abstract

Introduction: Multi-disciplinary cases often require provision of dental implants. Many a times, orthodontic cases are finished with the provision of space for the surgeons to place prosthetic implants. Such patients may require bone augmentation through bone grafts. Hence a retrospective study was conducted to compare different types of bone grafts i.e. allograft, alloplast and combination of the two and their impact on the success of dental implants.

Material and Methods: It was a retrospective study. Three subsets / arms were established. In Arm A, 32 patients were treated with autografts, in arm B, 49 patients were treated with allografts and in arm C, 26 patients were treated with a combination of allografts and autografts. Cases were considered successful if implants were stable with minimal levels of bone resorption, six months following loading.

Results: There was 1 failure each of implant when autograft was used alone or in combination. Hence, we are reporting 96.8% and 96.1% success rate respectively. We have a success rate of 91.8% when allograft was used alone, with 4 failures in the 49 cases of group B.  This establishes autograft as a gold standard for bone augmentation in dental implants. Yet allograft remains a popular choice.

Conclusions: Autograft when used alone or in combination with allograft gives reasonable and predictable success. Our study establishes that autograft either harvested intraorally or extraorally remains the gold standard for bone grafting for dental implants. At the same time we see that allografts remain a popular choice as most patients received allografts.