Clinical assessment of maxillary screw-retained implant prosthesis fabricated from digital versus conventional full- arch implant impression. A randomized controlled clinical trial.

Abstract

To evaluate the peri-implant marginal bone loss (MBL) and prosthodontic complications of maxillary screw-retained implant prosthesis fabricated from digital versus conventional full- arch implant impression. 28 participants with edentulous maxillary arches were randomly selected and enrolled in two equal groups; Group I conventional impression group (CIG) and Group II Digital impression group (DIG). All patients were rehabilitated with maxillary screwretained implant prosthesis retained by 6 implants. Peri-implant MBL and prosthodontic complications and were registered at 6, 12, and 24 months (m). Data was collected and statistically analyzed. Regarding the effect of time, there was a statistically significant increase in MBL at 6, 12 and 24 m follow-up periods (P<.001). As for the effect of groups, there was no statistically significant difference in MBL between CIG and DIG at 6, 12 and 24 m where P value was 0.083, 0.087 and 0.133 respectively. Prosthetic complications were recorded 19 times in the conventional group and 12 times in the digital group with no significant difference between both groups (P=.303). Digital full -arch implant impression is a reliable impression technique and may represent an alternative to conventional impression technique in the fabrication of maxillary screw-retained implant prosthesis.