Prevalence and risk/protective indicators of buccal soft tissue dehiscence around dental implants

Aim: To evaluate the prevalence of buccal peri-implant soft tissue dehiscence (PISTD) in anterior implants and to identify the risk/protective indicators of PISTD in implants not suffering peri-implantitis. Materials and methods: 240 randomly selected patients from a university clinic database were invited to participate in the present cross-sectional study. Those who accepted, after the evaluation of their medical and dental records, were clinically examined to assess the prevalence of buccal PISTD in non-molar implants. Multilevel multivariate logistic regression analyses were then carried out to identify those factors associated either positively (risk) or negatively (protective) with buccal PISTD in implants without peri-implantitis. Results: 92 patients with a total of 272 dental implants were analysed. At implant-level, the prevalence of buccal PISTD was 16.9%, while when selecting only implants without peri-implantitis it was 12.0%. Buccal PISTD was present in 26.7% of the implants diagnosed with peri-implantitis. The following factors were identified as risk/protective indicators of buccal PISTD in implants without peri-implantitis: malposition (too buccal vs. correct: OR=14.67), thin peri-implant phenotype (OR=8.31), presence of at least one adjacent tooth (OR=0.08) and presence of abutment (OR=0.12). Conclusions: PISTD are highly prevalent among patients with dental implants in this university-based population, and several factors were identified as risk and protective indicators of PISTD in implants not suffering peri-implantitis.