Meeting abstract
Overloading of Dental Implants: a Myth or Reality?
L. Vidyasagar
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Dental implants have reported success rates of over 90% over long periods of time. However, failures still occur and seem to be unpredictable. One factor that is increasingly considered a strong candidate in failure of dental implants is occlusal loading. Overloading of dental implants during functional and parafunctional
activity has been extensively discussed from the clinical point of view, but little scientific evidence. AIM: The aim of this article is to review literature related to loading and overloading implants through masticatory and parafunctional activity, in order to attempt to clarify causality of overload in relation to implant failure. Materials and Methods: All types of publications, published in English up to December 2001 were included. Pubmed search was done using various keywords and the “related article” feature. All identified publications and in vivo studies were reviewed but case studies
were excluded. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Osseointegrated implants can fail due to very high occlusal load under experimental conditions. However, the safe and the overload levels are not known. What is clear is that loss of osseointegration is more frequent in early implant loss in the presence of micromotion. Apart from this, it is difficult to find a clear relationship between loading and in
vivo tissue response. CONCLUSION: Within the context of the published literature, the consensus on overloading of dental implants
is still an unresolved issue. It can be concluded that more research is required to reach a better understanding on the relationship between overload and interfacial biomechanics. Nevertheless, the clinician should be aware that increased loading, associated with parafunctional activities, has a higher risk of biomechanical complications.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
10051
URI
Publication date:
15.9.2002.
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