Objectives: To assess relevant data comparing short implants or implants associated with vertical ridge augmentation derived from RCT's and CCT's.
Material and methods: A PubMed and hand search was performed to identify all RCT's and CCT's published in English language comparing short implants to implants associated with vertical ridge augmentation.
Results: The initial search resulted in 3387 articles. A total of 17 articles were eligible for full-text analysis and four were finally included. This review tends to demonstrate similar implant survival rates between implants placed in vertically augmented bone and short implants (95.09% vs. 96.24%, respectively) with a follow-up ranging from 1 to 5 years. In terms of prosthetic survival rates, there were no differences between the treatments. More surgical complications were reported when using implants placed in vertically augmented bone compared to short implants (56 patients with surgical complications compared to 18 patients, respectively).
Conclusions: This evidence should, however, be interpreted with caution as it is derived from four RCT's with limited sample size (ranging from 15 to 30 per group), limited follow-up and performed by the same research group.
Keywords: short dental implants; systematic review; vertical ridge augmentation.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.