Can dental implants osseointegrate in oral cancer patients?

Abstract

Data sources: Medline from 1986 to September 2010. Hand-searching of unspecified journals over an unspecified period of time.

Study selection: Clinical studies, though not confined to a particular type (e.g. randomised controlled trial), involving patients having undergone radio- and chemotherapy following oral cancer surgery. Only those articles published in English were included.

Data extraction and synthesis: No details are given of the number of reviewers, of any quality assessment of the included papers, nor of how they proposed to synthesise the data or conduct subgroup and sensitivity analysis.

Results: A narrative report of findings from 21 included studies. No report is made of the types of study, nor their quality. In 16 studies that examined whether dental implants osseointegrated following radiation, between 68% and 100% did (no confidence intervals reported). Studies ranged in duration from 2 months to 13 years.

Conclusions: Dental implants can osseointegrate and remain functionally stable in patients having undergone oral cancer therapy.