Restorative Factors That Affect the Biomechanics of the Dental Implant

Dental implants have become a significant aspect of tooth replacement in prosthodontic treatment. Despite of high success rates, complications and failures still occur. One factor that is increasingly being implicated with dental implant failure is occlusal overloading. Overloading of dental implants during functional and parafunctional activity has been extensively discussed from an empirical point of view but with sparse scientific evidence. The aim of this article is to critically evaluate the restorative factors that may affect the loading of dental implants at the bone-implant interface. Conflicting evidence of the contribution of restorative factors to bone loss around dental implants fails to identify overload as a definitive factor in dental implant failure. However, strong evidence indicates that overload or high stresses to the prosthesis supported by dental implants produces mechanical failures, which are not insignificant.
Key words: Restorative factors, bone, implant, load, interface