A Measure of Clinical Outcomes in Dental Implant Surgery Flapless Surgery versus Flap Technique in Posterior Maxilla of Post Menopause Women

The aim of this study is to examine the clinical outcomes of implants inserted using split mouth study and to measure patients’ satisfaction using visual analogue scale in flapless and conventional flap techniques in post menopause women age 50 years or over. Materials and methods: This study is a retrospective split mouth study of flapless vs flap technique involving the study of dental records of 16 post-menopause of patients undergoing bilateral implant surgery in the posterior maxilla. A total of 45 implants with no augmentative procedures were selected from 16 patients for the study. The patients were divided into two groups: the control group had 21 implants placed by full flap technique, and the test group consisted of 24 implants inserted using flapless procedure. Only those patients with comprehensive clinical record were included in this study. The treatment outcomes were measured using key words: implant survival, Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Periotest, x-ray assessment. Results and Discussion: The results showed that flapless surgery had comparable, similar results as compare to flap surgery: survival rate (95.8% and 95.2%), Using visual analogue scale (VAS=0 to 10), flapless surgery revealed to have less: pain, swelling, bleeding and speech impairment and had better overall satisfaction at one day and one week than flap technique than the flap counterpart (*P<0.05). No significant difference in bone resorption at 3 months. After one year, bone change in the flap group vs the flapless group was statistically significant [-0.53 (±0.57) vs +0.08 (±0.49), **P<0.005]. No significant difference in Periotest value (PTV). Conclusion: This study showed that implant flapless surgery is a minimal invasive, effective, and novel technique that can render a significantly better early stage satisfaction outcome as compare to the traditional flap method. Flapless implantation resulted in minimal bone loss, less pain, less complications, and comparable good PTV.