Short Dental Implant Versus Standard Dental Implant:A Meta-analysis

Objectives:To systematically review the implant failure and complications as well as marginal bone loss of short dental implants compared with standard implants in order to evaluate the effects of short implants in clinical application.Methods:An electronic Pubmed,Embase,Cochrane library,Web of science,Wanfang database,CNKI and CBM search was performed for randomized controlled clinical trials,including articles from January1990 to November 2018.The subject words " short implants,implant failure,complications,marginal bone loss" were adopted to search literature on the above databases.Then the references of the research literature were searched manually.Two independent reviewers independently screened literature,extracted data,and evaluated the bias risk of included studies.If there were differences,the third researcher carried out further discussion and decision.Then,Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software.The inspection level of Meta-analysis was P=0.5.Results:A total of twenty-two randomized controlled trials involving 1668 implants were included.Meta-analysis results showed that risk of failureof short implants was greater than standard implants under the situation of sufficient alveolar bone.The difference had statistically significant difference ?RR=3.66(95%CI:1.05—12.84,P=0.04)?;The marginal bone loss of short implants was similar with standard implants?MD=0.10(95%CI:-0.01—0.21,P=0.08)?.When the alveolar bone was not enough,there was no statistical difference of implant failure between short implants and standard implants implanted by bone augmentation surgery?RR=0.83,95%CI:(0.51—1.34),P=0.44?;In terms of complications ?RR=0.24,95%CI:(0.17—0.34),P<0.01?and marginal bone loss ?MD=-0.22,95%CI:(-0.27—-0.16),P<0.01?,short implants were significantly lower than standard implants implanted by bone augmentation surgery.Conclusion:1.When the alveolar bone was enough,the implant failure rate of short implants is greater than that of standard implants.2.When the alveolar bone was not enough,short implants can similar clinical effects as standard implants in short term.3.When the alveolar bone was not enough,the incidence of complications of short implants is lower.