Effect on the amount of bone-implant contact when splinting immediate-loaded dental implants.

PURPOSE Much attention has been focused on the immediate or early loading of implants with or without splinting. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the contact rate between bones and implants, with or without splinting. MATERIALS AND METHODS Under general anesthesia, an 8-mm-deep cavity for a dental implant was drilled in the mandibular ridge of dogs where teeth had been extracted 4 months earlier. Rough-surfaced, cylindrical screw implants (International Team for Implantology [ITI] monotype implants 4 mm diameter and 8 mm long, Straumann, Basel, Switzerland) were placed with splinting on the right side and without splinting on the left side using gold abutment. Resin plates for the maxilla were adjusted to attach to the gold abutment in each mandible. At 4, 8, or 12 weeks after the implantation, specimens were stained using toluidine blue and fuchsin. The sections were observed and morphometric analysis was performed to measure the rates of bone-implant contact and new bone-implant contact. RESULTS The ratio of bone-implant contact on the lingual side was higher than on the buccal side in both the splinted and the unsplinted groups, and the rates in the splinted group were also higher than in the unsplinted group. The ratio of new bone-implant contact was not significantly different between the splinted and unsplinted groups, except for spongy bone at 4 weeks. CONCLUSION Splinting of immediate-loading dental implants can be adequate for osseointegration, particularly in spongy bone.