On treatment outcomes of implant-supported mandibular prostheses in edentulous patients

To date long-term studies on patient- and dentist-mediated treatment outcomes of patients treated with implant-supported mandibular prostheses are sparse in the literature. In this dissertation, we investigated four groups of unmatched edentulous patients treated at different time periods with fixed and overdenture mandibular prostheses and followed for at least ten years. The implant-related outcomes underscore the fact that once osseointegration was established with the Branemark implant, the prognosis for long-term function in the anterior mandible was guaranteed with both prosthetic techniques. The cross sectional evaluation of patient-mediated concerns with conventional prostheses allowed us to establish patient comparability when they received implant treatment. Furthermore evaluation of the oral health-related quality of life indicated that the two prosthetic designs equally addressed the patients' needs. The prosthodontic outcomes in this study showed that maintenance was related to the prosthesis design and that longevity was in excess of a decade with both designs. Overall the maintenance visits required over the observation period was fairly similar for both prosthetic designs. The economic evaluation of the treatment outcomes clearly indicated that the overdenture approach, at least with a resilient bar retention mechanism, was indeed a more cost effective approach to rehabilitating edentulous patients seeking implant-supported mandibular prostheses. In addition short-term results on immediate loading with overdentures indicated that although from a biological and patient-mediated standpoint the protocol was successful, the clinical and economic evaluation suggested that the particular prosthetic protocol selected was not cost effective when compared to the conventional approach.