Effect of Implant Connection Type and Depth on the Seating Accuracy of Hand-Tightened Abutments.

PURPOSE: Improper seating of abutment on the implant is a common problem. This study investigated the effect of the type of implant/abutment interface on the complete seating of the abutments on the head of implants placed at different gingival depths.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three implant systems with three different connections including straight external hexagon, butt-joint internal tri-lobed, and conical internal hexagon were used. Two gingival thicknesses (2 and 7 mm) were created using pink baseplate wax around the straight abutments seated on the implants. After placing the implants in acrylic blocks, the wax was replaced with the gingival mask material to simulate the gingival drape around the implant heads. Afterwards, 15 prosthodontists were asked to hand-tighten the straight abutments in the corresponding implant bodies relying only on their tactile sense. At the final stage, the gingival mask was removed, and the seating quality of the abutments on implant bodies was assessed visually. The effect of implant connection and depth on abutment seating accuracy was analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis and multiple-comparison tests.

RESULTS: No significant difference was found regarding the effect of either depth or connection design on the accuracy of the abutment seating (p > 0.05); however, pairwise comparison of the combined effect of the depth and connection design was significant (p = 0.009). Accuracy of abutment seating on the Nobel Active implants at both 2 and 7 mm depths were significantly better than Replace system with 7 mm depth (p = 0.027). The same results were obtained in comparison between Nobel Active system at both 2 and 7 mm depths with Branemark system with 7 mm depth (p = 0.006).

CONCLUSION: An increase in implant placement depth meant a decrease in accuracy of the abutment seating. The internal conical connection design showed the best result in abutment positioning in deep implants as compared with external and internal butt-joint connection designs.