Short Versus Regular-Length Implants to Rehabilitate Partially Edentulous Mandible: A 2-Year Prospective Split-Mouth Clinical Study

Many studies have evaluated short implants (SIs); however, it is still unclear whether SIs are reliable and can be used to simplify surgical and prosthetic protocols with successful clinical outcomes. The aim of this nonrandom, conveniently sampled, prospective, split-mouth study was to compare the clinical outcomes when short SI (≤8 mm) or regular-length implants (RIs; >10 mm) were used in the posterior mandible 2 years after the delivery of splinted reconstructions. Each participant (N = 10) received 4 implants in the posterior mandible; 2 SIs were placed on one side, and 2 RIs were placed contralaterally. Implants were restored with splinted, screw-retained, porcelain-fused-to-metal reconstructions. Survival and success rates, peri-implant marginal bone level (MBL), and soft-tissue parameters were evaluated. No participant dropouts were recorded. Both types of implants showed 100% success and survival rates. From prosthetic delivery to 24 months postloading, bone remineralization of +0.40 mm for the SIs and +0.36 mm for the RIs was observed without statistically significant differences in MBL between the implant types (P = .993). SIs showed significantly higher (P = .001) clinical attachment level and probing depth values. Chipping occurred in one situation in the RI group, resulting in a 97.5% prosthetic success rate, which was 100% for the SIs. After 2 years, SIs with splinted reconstructions showed comparable clinical outcomes to those of RIs. Further long-term controlled clinical studies with balanced experimental designs evaluating random and larger populations are required to corroborate these findings.