POSITIVE EFFECT OF SURGICAL EXPERIENCE WITH IMPLANTS ON 2ND-STAGE IMPLANT SURVIVAL

This Dental Implant Clinical Research Group study defined a learning c urve for dental implant placement, Implants placed by inexperienced su rgeons (<50 implants) failed twice as often as those placed by experie nced surgeons (greater than or equal to 50 implants), Implants placed during the first 6, 8, 10, 12, and 16 cases were compared with all oth ers, The greatest difference was seen between the first nine cases and all others (P = .001), with later cases failing significantly less of ten, Inexperienced surgeons had more failures in the first nine cases (5.9%) than more experienced surgeons (2.4%), Surgeons with little or no previous experience must expect a definite learning curve, Previous experience may transfer and result in a shallower learning curve for subsequent systems.