Histologic and histomorphometric evaluation of early and immediately loaded implants in the dog mandible

Abstract New bone formation around US III OSSTEM implants after early and immediate loading was evaluated in this study. Three premolars and the first and second molars were first removed from the left mandible of five dogs. At 3 weeks after extraction of the teeth in the left mandible, the corresponding teeth in the right mandibles were removed. After 12 weeks of bone healing, five implants were placed in the left mandible. At 3 weeks after placement of implants in the left mandible, another five were placed in the right mandible. At the time of placing implants in the right mandible, four implants on each side were restored using a fixed provisional restoration. The anterior‐most implant was not loaded and was used as controls. Periotest measurements performed immediately after implantation and after 16 weeks loading indicated implant stability for all groups tested. At 16 weeks after loading, the rate of peri‐implant bone formation for the early loaded, immediately loaded (IL), and control implants were observed to be 75.00, 73.37, and 62.04%, respectively. It was thus concluded that early stability was achieved in early and IL implants using fixed provisional restoration, thereby resulting in the high rate of peri‐implant bone formation. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res, 2008