Radiographic Evaluation of Supporting Structures Around Mini Implant Retained Over Denture Utilizing Three Different Denture Base Materials

Background and Purpose: Recently mini-implant over denture is widely used as a substitution for the conventional two-implant over denture. This study was done to evaluate the supporting structures around mini implant retained over denture radiographically when utilizing three different denture base materials.

Subjects and Method: This is a randomized controlled trial included 24 healthy completely edentulous male patients selected from the out-patient clinic and divided randomly into three equal groups according to the used denture base material. Group I: the conventional acrylic denture base implants were used. Group II: hard thermoplastic denture base implants Polyan IC (PMMA) were used and Group III: semi flexible thermoplastic denture base implants (bre flex 2nd edition) were used. Crestal bone loss around each mini implant was measured radiographically at 3 different follow-up intervals, baseline-3 months, baseline-6 months and baseline-12 months’. Bone density around each mini implant was measured radiographically in relative Hounsfield unit (Hu) at baseline, 3, 6, and 12 months. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS program version 20 with considering statistical significance when P value<0.05.

Results: No implant failure was detected. The bone loss values were higher significantly in the group of semi flexible thermoplastic denture bases. There was an increased bone density values in patients with acrylic denture bases than other groups but this difference was not statistically significant.

Conclusion: Under the limitations of this study we can conclude that acrylic and hard thermoplastic resins are better than semi flexible thermoplastic resins.