Factors associated with success rate of alveolar bone graft for dental implant rehabilitation: an up to 10-years retrospective study

Background: Nowadays, rehabilitating edentulous areas using dental implants has become a reliable treatment choice. However, insufficient bone volume is the most common clinical problem in dental implant rehabilitation, indicating the requirement of reconstructive bone surgeries to increase bone availability. Objective: To identify the factors that potentially associate with success in alveolar bone graft surgery for dental implant rehabilitation, along with the bone graft success rate for dental implant rehabilitation, implant survival rate and marginal bone loss (MBL) around implants Materials and methods: Treatment outcomes of the patients with alveolar bone grafts for dental implant rehabilitation were audited between January 2007 and December 2016. The influences of several patient-related, bone graft-related and implant-related factors were determined. The success rate of bone graft and implant survival rate were recorded. Moreover, The MBL up to 2 years after implant installation was evaluated in periapical radiographs. Results: In a mean follow-up of 39.73 months (range 1-10 years), the success rate of bone graft was 97.4% in 122 patients with 192 alveolar bone graft surgeries. A total of 245 implants were rehabilitated and implant survival rate was 98.4%. None of the factors were statistically influenced on the success rate of bone graft. For the implant survival rate, systemic health conditions (p=0.002), various categories of bone graft (p=0.003) and types of graft surgery technique (p=0.02) were significantly associated. In addition, simultaneous or staged implantation related to bone graft significantly influenced the average MBL in both the first year (p=0.09) and the second year (p=0.07) after implant placement. Conclusion: Our data substantiated that the success rate of alveolar bone graft surgeries was independent of age, gender, previous head and neck therapy, anti-osteoresorptive drug therapy, smoking, use of an adjunctive membrane, site and location distribution. Patients’ systemic health conditions, various categories of bone grafts, and types of graft surgery techniques should be considered when planning bone graft and implant procedures. Future studies should have longer follow-up times.