Prevalence and risk/protective indicators of buccal soft tissue dehiscence around dental implants

Abstract

Aim To evaluate the prevalence of buccal peri‐implant soft tissue dehiscence (PISTD) in anterior implants and to identify the risk/protective indicators of PISTD in implants not suffering peri‐implantitis. Materials and methods 240 randomly selected patients from a university clinic database were invited to participate in the present cross‐sectional study. Those who accepted, after the evaluation of their medical and dental records, were clinically examined to assess the prevalence of buccal PISTD in non‐molar implants. Multilevel multivariate logistic regression analyses were then carried out to identify those factors associated either positively (risk) or negatively (protective) with buccal PISTD in implants without peri‐implantitis. Results 92 patients with a total of 272 dental implants were analysed. At implant‐level, the prevalence of buccal PISTD was 16.9%, while when selecting only implants without peri‐implantitis it was 12.0%. Buccal PISTD was present in 26.7% of the implants diagnosed with peri‐implantitis. The following factors were identified as risk/protective indicators of buccal PISTD in implants without peri‐implantitis: malposition (too buccal vs. correct: OR=14.67), thin peri‐implant phenotype (OR=8.31), presence of at least one adjacent tooth (OR=0.08) and presence of abutment (OR=0.12). Conclusions PISTD are highly prevalent among patients with dental implants in this university‐based population, and several factors were identified as risk and protective indicators of PISTD in implants not suffering peri‐implantitis.