Predictability of short dental implants for rehabilitation of the complete edentulous: A systematic review

Aim: The use of short implants is emerging as a promising option in the implant-based rehabilitation of edentulous patients; yet their clinical performance is not fully documented. The purpose of this systematic review was to assess the clinical performance of the use of short implants on complete-arch implant-supported fixed dental prostheses and to compare their design with the in-vitro study. Materials and Methods: The PubMed database of the United States National Library of Medicine and EBSCOhost Research Databases were used as electronic databases, and a literature search was accomplished with a personal computer on articles published in English from January 2010 up to and including August 2020. Articles available online in electronic form before their publication in material form were considered eligible for inclusion in the present article. Results: The electronic search in both databases (PubMed and EBSCOhost) provided a total of 6779 titles and abstracts that were deemed potentially relevant to the influence of the short implant on a fixed complete denture. During the manual search of dental journals, 57 titles and abstracts were examined. In the second phase of study selection, the complete text of 1028 articles was retrieved and subjected to scrutiny. Throughout this procedure, 70 articles were obtained and the rest were excluded. Finally, the remaining 15 articles met the study inclusion criteria and were approved by all reviewers. Short implants offer benefits in terms of less invasive surgery, ease of handling, and reduced risk of damaging anatomical structures. Short implants can also be used in the rehabilitation of edentulous jaws. Avoiding or minimizing the length of the cantilever in dental implants is an important rule for the long-term success of implant treatment, including the rehabilitation of an edentulous jaw using an implant-supported fixed denture. The location of placement and the number of short implants are very influential in reducing the risk of excessive stress on the peri-implant bone. Conclusion: Short implants are potential alternatives to rehabilitating edentulous jaws, whether combined with standard size or longer implants or “All-on-short” as a whole. Further studies are still needed to obtain a guideline for the use of short implants to rehabilitate edentulous patients.