Effect of the Lateral Bone Augmentation Procedure in Correcting Peri-Implant Bone Dehiscence Defects: A 7-Years Retrospective Study

Guided bone regeneration (GBR) is a well-documented and widely-used dental surgical procedure for the treatment of various types of alveolar bone defects. The aim of the study was to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of the GBR procedure in correcting small peri-implant bone dehiscence using the xenogeneic deproteinized bovine bone mineral material and a xenogeneic native bilayer collagen membrane. The present study was designed as a retrospective study. Seventy-five bone-level tapered two-piece dental implants Conelog®, Camlog (Biotechnologies AG, Switzerland) were divided into two groups G1—no bone augmentation (no GBR)—44 implants and G2—bone augmentation (GBR)—31 implants. For both groups, the closed healing protocol with a primary wound closure was used. The incidence of peri-implantits was evaluated, the quantitative assessment of soft tissue thickness was performed using the ultrasound (USG) device, quantitative assessment of marginal bone loss (MBL) was done. The prevalence of peri-implantitis was 5.3%, with a three-fold increase in peri-implantitis comparing the groups without and with bone augmentation (G1 = 2.27%, G2 = 9.7%). The average keratinized gingiva thickness was 1.87 mm and did not differ significantly between groups. No statistically significant differences in MBL between G1 and G2 were found. When dividing patients by gender, no statistically significant differences were observed. When dividing patients by age groups, statistically significant differences were observed between the youngest and oldest groups of patients. Within the limitations of this study, it can be concluded that the use of xenogeneic bone and a xenogeneic collagen membrane in a GBR procedure can be recommended to correct small peri-implant bone dehiscence.