Clinical benefits of dental implant treatment

Abstract

The decision-making process can be based on: (1) the clinician’s own uncontrolled clinical experience (induction); (2) the advice of colleagues, advertisers, and sales- persons (seduction); or (3) analysis of findings from properly designed prospective trials (deduction). The latter approach is regarded as the only defensible and scientifically acceptable approach for the decision-making process. The practical application of the deduction approach has developed into the methods of evidence-based practice. According to principles of evidence-based practice, the prospective, randomized controlled trial (RCT) represents the most rigorous clinical design to document the efficacy/effectiveness and risk of the therapy under investigation. A recent article concluded that the quality of RCTs of oral implants is generally poor and needs to be improved (Table 1). Interestingly, similar observations were also made in the surgical literature, where several reviews have confirmed that RCTs are not commonly reported,and that the standard of RCTs is inferior when RCTs are performed by surgeons to evaluate the effectiveness of surgical procedures.