Complications in implant therapy: A review

The most common complications in implant dentistry occur after loading of an implant. There are many factors that need to be considered by the clinician while planning for an implant prosthesis. These include patient factors like bone density, ridge defects,systemic factor and implant related factors like implant angulation, type of loading of implant, type of occlusion given, implant component factors and others. A comprehensive search was initiated in PubMed Central, Medline, Cochrane, Embase, Ovid, Science Direct, Copernicus and Google Scholar databases for terms related to complications in dental implants. Systematic reviews, Randomised Controlled Trials, Prospective clinical studies, and Case control studies were included. Case reports, In vitro studies and studies involving animals were excluded from the search. Based on the analysis, implant complications were divided as biological complications and prosthetic complications. Prosthetic complications were further classified as mechanical and technical complications. Implants are more susceptible to biological complications which include Peri-Mucositis and Peri-implantitis. These are treated with curettage, laser therapy, antimicrobial therapy and bone regenerative techniques. The most common prosthetic complication is screw loosening occurring due to loss of preload, however, other complications like screw fracture, abutment fracture, veneer chipping and framework fracture are also observed to occur. Proper planning and awareness are required to prevent these complications and thereby increase the success of implant therapy.