Incidence of First Implant Failure: A Retroprospective Study of 27 Years of Implant Operations at One Specialist Clinic

BackgroundEven though there are many studies available reporting on implant failures, there are few studies that follow implant failures over time in large populations. PurposeThe purpose of this article is to present an overview of the annual incidence of reported implant failures for patients and operations over a 28-year period. Materials and MethodsA total of 8,528 patients were consecutively provided with 39,077 implants in 10,719 implant operations during a 27-year period (1986-2012) at one specialist clinic. All patients with reported failures of implants during a 28-year routine follow-up period (1986-2013) were included, and data from the patients' files were retrieved and reported. ResultsAltogether, 857 patients (882 jaws/operations) were identified with one or more failures (10.0% of patients/8.5% of operations). Mean annual incidence of first failure showed obvious variations between years, even between seemingly clinically similar situations. However, incidence of first implant failure was higher for upper than lower jaws (p<.05), within 1 year of surgery (69%) than after 1 year (p<.05), and for implants with a turned surface compared with implants with a moderately rough surface (p<.05). ConclusionsWith regard to annual failure incidence in relation to total number of operations over time, obvious variations in failure rate can be observed between seemingly similar clinical situations, as well as significant differences in incidence of first implant failure between the first year after surgery and later time points, between upper and lower jaws using implants with turned surfaces, and between operations to install implants with turned surfaces and those to install implants with moderately rough surfaces.