Dental Implant Site Distribution

Dental Implant Site Distribution
D.M. ALMOG, M.R. GANDDINI, and J. ROY, University of Rochester Eastman Dental Center, NY, USA
March 2004
Clinical Implant Studies
As dental implants become a more accessible treatment for missing teeth, we may encounter more random anatomic situations. Unless we utilize all of the scientific resources available to us, we may be putting the patient and ourselves at needless risk for failure. Therefore, understanding the correlation between implant sites, anatomical landmarks, implant systems, imaging modalities and case complexity, to name a few, is essential in order to obtain predictable reconstruction and aesthetic outcomes. This suggests that continuous investigation with numerical data to support success to failure ratio following the concomitant use of the above mentioned variables is imperative. Objective: The objective of this study was to calculate the distribution of implant sites in a general patient population considering a dental implant procedure. Ideally, randomized clinical trials should be conducted taking in account ordinary site distribution. Methods: Data entries from all 1,088 consecutive patients referred over the past eight years to the Craniofacial Diagnostic Imaging (CDI) facility from the University of Rochester Eastman Dental Center for dental implant tomography exams were selected for this study. Results: The average number of implant sites designated for cross-sectional imaging per referral was calculated to be 2.53. Frequencies by location of the 2,754 implant sites are as follows: 1,871 (68%) posterior and 883 (32%) anterior. The following six location categories were established: 810 (29.41%) mandibular right and left molars; 544 (19.75%) maxillary anteriors; 457 (16.59%) mandibular right and left bicuspids; 349 (12.67%) maxillary right and left bicuspids; 339 (12.31%) mandibular anteriors; and 255 (9.26%) maxillary right and left molars. Conclusions: These results provide evidence that close to 70% (95% confidence interval: 66-70%) of implants sites are sought in the posterior region of the mouth, and of those, the mandibular molar regions represent the greater part of it.