Background: Immediately placed/immediately restored dental implants in the esthetic zone are judged by not only their functional success but also the appearance and acceptance of the restorative outcome. The purpose of this study was to retrospectively evaluate in a private-practice setting the satisfaction of both patients and doctors regarding immediately placed/immediately restored implants in the esthetic zone.
Methods: The author group consists of nine board-certified periodontists. Each private practice contributed to the patient population of this study through a primarily referral-based source. In a 6-month period, practices evaluated patients who were candidates for dental implant replacement with teeth Nos. 5 through 12 scheduled for extraction. All patients received informed consent and were asked if their data could be used with a visual analog scale (VAS) they graded. Pretreatment and 6-month post-final restoration loading was compared for statistically significant changes in reference to crestal bone changes, papilla index score (PIS), facial gingival margin stability (FGMS), and investigator/patient esthetic evaluations using a VAS.
Results: Thirty-five patients were included in the study with a total of 35 implants placed and 32 restored with a final restoration. Implants were followed for an average of 15.4 months prior to reporting. A total of three failures were encountered. The PIS resulted in an average score of 2.7. VAS resulted in an average score of 9.3 by the surgeons and 9.5 by the patients. The FGMS accounted for 76% of the implants with no change, 15% demonstrating recession, and 9% demonstrating coronal migration.
Conclusions: Immediately placed and immediately temporized implants in the esthetic zone demonstrated a successful outcome that was highly acceptable to patients in private-practice settings from a diverse group of private periodontal practices.