Effect of antiplatelet and anticoagulant medications on implant survival: a long-term retrospective cohort study.

Purpose: This large-scale retrospective study aimed to examine the long-term effect of antiplatelet and anticoagulant medications intake on dental implant treatment outcome.

Materials And Methods: This study retrospectively examined data from patients who underwent dental implant procedures at several university dental clinics within the BigMouth network between 2011 and 2022. Patients' characteristics including age, gender, ethnicity, race, tobacco use, systemic medical conditions and intake of antiplatelets and anticoagulants were analyzed. Implant treatment outcome was the main outcome variable. Implant failure was defined as the removal of a dental implant for any reason. Time to failure (date of procedure to date of visit with failure) was recorded, while sites without a failure were censored at the last follow-up visit.

Results: A total of 50,333 dental implants in 20,842 patients over 12 years were analyzed and an implant failure rate of 1.4% at the implant level and 2.7% at the patient level were found. Asians, African-Americans, American Indians or Alaskan Natives, and White individuals were significantly more likely to receive antiplatelet medications than Hispanics or Latinos. Males and smokers exhibited significantly higher odds of being antiplatelet and anticoagulant users compared to females and non-smokers, respectively. When the implant survival rates between antiplatelet and anticoagulant users were compared to non-users, no significant differences were observed.

Conclusion: Within the limitations of this study, it appears that the use of anticoagulant and antiplatelet medications does not affect the risk of implant failure. Both anticoagulant and antiplatelet users and non-users exhibit similar high implant survival rates.