Objectives: The development of treated implant surfaces, added to the increase of the aesthetic requirements by the patients has led to a change in the treatment protocols as well as the development of techniques such as the one-fase implants and the immediate prosthetic loading. One of the usual contraindications of the implant treatment is the presence of periapical disease associated to the tooth to be replaced. The aim of this paper is to review the published literature on immediate implant placement in extraction sockets of teeth with periapical pathology, considering the level of scientific evidence, and following the principles of medicine and evidence-based Dentistry.
Materials and methods: A search of articles published between 1982 and 2012 was conducted. The search terms immediate, dental implant, extraction, infected, periapical pathology were used. Search was limited to studies in animals and humans, published in english language.
Results: 16 articles were selected from a total of 438, which were stratified according to their level of scientific evidence using the SORT criteria (Strength of Recommendation Taxonomy). Studies in both animals and humans presented high rates of implant survival, but human studies are limited to a small number of cases.
Discussion and conclusions: There is a limited evidence regarding implant placement immediately to the extraction of teeth affected by chronic periapical pathology. Following analysis of the articles, and in function of their scientific quality, a type B recommendation is given in favor of the immediate implant placement in fresh sockets associated to periapical infectious processes.