Survival of immediately provisionalized dental implants: A case-control study with up to 5 years follow-up

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the survival rate of immediately provisionalized implants with up to 5 years follow-up. Materials and Methods: The study consisted of 226 patients, 113 consecutive patients with immediately provisionalized dental implants (cases) and 113 randomly selected, age-, gender-, and implant position-matched controls with conventional late implant loading. Survival rate and incidence of complications were recorded. Results: Follow-up ranged from 6 to 60 months. Smoking was reported by 20.8% of patients. Maxillary incisors and mandibular lateral incisors were the most common areas for implant placement. Conventionally loaded implants were narrower (. p = .03) and shorter (. p = .001). Immediate implantation into a fresh extraction socket was performed in 69% of the cases and in 36.3% of the controls (. p = .001). Implant survival rate was 96.5%. Of the eight failed implants, six were immediately provisionalized and two were conventionally loaded. No statistically significant difference was found in survival rates between groups (. p > 0.05). Five of the failed implants (case group) were immediately loaded implants placed in fresh extraction sockets. Conclusion: Immediate implant provisionalization achieved similar high success rates compared with the conventional, delayed approach. As immediate implant provisionalization is mainly desired in the anterior region, the high success rates are encouraging.