Is flapless implant surgery a viable option in posterior maxilla? A review.
This article reviews the literature on the outcome of flapless surgery for dental implants in the posterior maxilla. The literature search was carried out in using the keywords: flapless, dental implants and maxilla. A hand search and Medline search were carried out on studies published between 1971 and 2011. The authors included research involving a minimum of 15 dental implants with a follow-up period of 1 year, an outcome measurement of implant survival, but excluded studies involving multiple simultaneous interventions, and studies with missing data. The Cochrane approach for cohort studies and Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine were applied. Of the 56 published papers selected, 14 papers on the flapless technique showed high overall implant survival rates. The prospective studies yielded 97.01% (95% CI: 90.72-99.0) while retrospective studies or case series illustrated 95.08% (95% CI: 91.0-97.93) survival. The average of intraoperative complications was 6.55% using the flapless procedure. The limited data obtained showed that flapless surgery in posterior maxilla areas could be a viable and predictable treatment method for implant placement. Flapless surgery tends to be more applicable in this area of the mouth. Further long-term clinical controlled studies are needed.
Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
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Doan
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Du
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Crawford
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Reher
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Xiao
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003758:Dental Implantation, Endosseous / Q000379:methods*; D017268:Dental Prosthesis Retention / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055094:Evidence-Based Dentistry; D006801:Humans; D007431:Intraoperative Complications; D007575:Jaw, Edentulous / Q000534:rehabilitation; D007576:Jaw, Edentulous, Partially / Q000534:rehabilitation; D008437:Maxilla; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D013524:Surgical Flaps; D016019:Survival Analysis; D055815:Young Adult