This one-year study shows that connective tissue grafting in single, immediately placed and provisionalized implants leads to less recession of the peri-implant soft tissue at the mid-buccal aspect, irrespective of the gingival biotype (www.trialregister.nl: TC3815).

The included literature suggested that promising short-term results could be achieved for immediate, early and conventional single-implants in the aesthetic zone. However, important parameters as aesthetic outcome, soft-tissue aspects, and patient satisfaction were clearly underexposed. The question whether immediate and early single-implant therapies would result in better treatment outcomes remained inconclusive due to lack of well-designed controlled clinical studies.

Conflict of interest and source of fundingThe authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest in this study and no external funding was obtained. AbstractAim: This study evaluated, through a systematic review of the literature, the estimated implant survival rate of short (<10 mm) dental implants installed in partially edentulous patients. Materials & methods:A systematic search was conducted in the electronic databases of MEDLINE (1980-October 2009) and EMBASE (1980-October 2009 to identify eligible studies. Two reviewers independently assessed the methodological quality of the articles using specific study-design related quality assessment forms.Results: Twenty-nine methodologically acceptable studies were selected. A total of 2611 short implants (lengths 5-9.5 mm) was analysed. Increase of implant length was associated with an increase in implant survival (from 93.1% to 98.6%). Heterogeneity between studies was explored by subgroup analyses. The cumulative estimated failure rate of studies performed in the maxilla was 0.010 implants per year, comparing to 0.003 of the studies in the mandible. For studies which also included smokers the failure rate was 0.008 comparing to 0.004 of studies which excluded smokers. Surface topography and augmentation procedure were no source of heterogeneity.