Dental Implants in Patients with Sjögren's Syndrome

Abstract

Background: Limited evidence is available for applying dental implants in Sjögren's syndrome (SS) patients.

Purpose: This study aims to retrospectively assess clinical outcome of implant therapy in a cohort of well-classified patients with SS.

Materials and methods: All SS patients attending the University Medical Center Groningen for follow-up (n = 406) were asked whether they had implants. In SS patients with implants peri-implant health and implant survival was recorded and compared with data from matched healthy controls. Patients' symptoms, health-related quality of life, oral functioning, and satisfaction were assessed using validated questionnaires.

Results: Of the responding SS patients (n = 335), 21% was provided with implants. Of these 69 SS patients, 50 SS patients were willing to join our study. In SS patients, peri-implant health was reasonably good with minor marginal bone loss and a peri-implantitis prevalence of 14%, comparable with healthy controls. Implant survival was 97% (median follow-up 46 months) [IQR 26;73], and overall patients' satisfaction was high. Oral functioning correlated negatively with dryness, patients' satisfaction, and chewing ability in SS patients.

Conclusions: Implant therapy is common in our cohort of SS patients. In spite of shortcomings of our retrospective analysis, implants in SS patients seem to perform comparable with implants in healthy patients.

Keywords: Sjögren's syndrome; dental implants; health-related quality of life; oral rehabilitation; patient satisfaction.