Specific use of the implant stability quotient as a guide to improve healing for patients who had undergone rehabilitation with fixed implant-supported dental prostheses.

Purposes: to develop a clinical approach to evaluating osteointegration around bone implants and try to determining which was the correct time of implant loading in different edentulous indications, that is, either properly positioned implants or implants "at risk", generally referred to as implants having increased probability of failure (namely those for which primary stability had been achieved via a time-consuming surgery).

Materials: Several implant-supported rehabilitation strategies, with or without bone augmentation procedures, were performed in the upper and lower arches: From 2 to 5 months following implant placement, the prosthetic restorations were performed. A resonance frequency analyzer allowed clinicians to measure intraoperative and postoperative implant stability, then the values of the implant stability quotient, ISQ, ranging from 0 to 100, were registered. ISQs were ranked into 3 levels: Green (ISQ ≥ 70), Yellow (60 ≤ ISQ < 70), and Red (ISQ < 60). Groups were subjected to Pearson's χ analysis, with YATES correction when necessary, with a significance level of 0.05.

Results: A total of 213 implants had been included. When the distribution of normalized values of ISQ registered for implants inserted in native bone and loaded at 2-3 months (5 Red, 19 Yellow, and 51 Green) was compared to that of native implants loaded after 4-5 months (4 Red, 20 Yellow, and 11 Green), a significative difference was found (p-value = 0.0037). At the time of loading, significance was lost. Significant clinical improvements on the distribution of normalized values of ISQ were apparent for both the implants placed in pristine and those placed in lifted sinuses; no significant differences were registered between the two groups.

Conclusion: At the loading time, implants considered to be at risk behaved similarly to the native sites for which the overall prosthetic workflow took about few; results confirmed that the mandibular implants appeared to have higher stabilities when compared to maxillary implants at both the intraoperative and the postoperative surveys.