A One-Year, Multicenter, Retrospective Evaluation of Narrow and Low-Profile Abutments Used to Rehabilitate Complete Edentulous Lower Arches: The OT Bridge Concept

Purpose: To evaluate preliminary data on survival and success rates of immediately loaded, screw-retained, restorations delivered on lower arches using narrow and low-profile OT Equator abutments. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed data of patients rehabilitated with OT Bridge (fixed prosthetic system built on OT Equator) prosthetic concept from November 2017 to February 2019 in five different centers. Outcome measures were implant and prosthetic survival rates, biological and technical complications, marginal bone loss (MBL), oral health impact profile (OHIP), bleeding on probing, and plaque index. Results: A total of 60 implants were inserted in 12 patients. Patients were followed for a mean period of 15.8 months (range 12–24). All the patients received OT Equator as intermediate abutments. Four out of 60 implants were connected to the prosthetic framework using only the Seeger system, without a screw. One year after loading, three implants failed (implant survival rate of 95.0%) in two patients. No prosthesis failed and no major biological and technical complications were experienced. One year after initial loading, the marginal bone level was 0.32 ± 0.2 mm. The OHIP before treatment was 87.7 ± 6.0. One year after treatment, OHIP was 23.6 ± 1.2. The difference was statistically significant (64.1 ± 7.2; p = 0.0000). One year after loading, 8.9% of the examined implant sites present positive bleeding on probing, while 5.8% of the implant sites presented plaque. Conclusions: The OT Equator abutments showed successful results when used to support mandible fixed dental prosthesis delivered on 4–6 implants. Whole prosthetic survival and success rates, high patient satisfaction, and good biological parameters were experienced one year after function. Further prospective studies are needed to confirm these preliminary results.