Tooth-Implant Combination Vs. Implant-Implant in Fixed Dental Prostheses; A Systematic Review & Meta-Analysis of the Long Term Complications

Abstract

Abstract: The connection of teeth to dental implants within an FDP (fixed dental prosthesis) has broadened treatment-planning possibilities in implant dentistry worldwide. Nevertheless, concerns have arisen regarding rigidly splinting teeth to implants due to a sum of complications that have been associated with these “combination prostheses”. On the other hand, many studies claim that the complications that occur with tooth-to implant prostheses also occur with implant-to-implant prostheses, or that no complications occur at all. The aim of this systematic review is to state the long-term complications mentioned in the literature about combinations of tooth-implant FDPs, when compared with implant-implant FDPs. A comprehensive electronic search in the literature between the period of 1960 to 2015 using the following search engines: Medline, Pubmed, OvidMD Plus, was done to gather the data in the literature. The results of this study show that the incidence of complications was significantly worse for Implant-Tooth FDPs group than the Implant-Implant group in regards to “Implant loss” and “Failed FDP” type of complications. However, the conclusion is that more thorough clinical documentation must be done to be able to extract valid data in future studies on this topic, otherwise it would be impossible to attain valid quantitative data from these studies.