Osseointegration in osteoporotic‐like condition: A systematic review of preclinical studies

Osteoporosis is one of the most common skeletal disorders affecting a significant percentage of people worldwide. Research data suggested that systemic diseases such as osteoporosis could act as risk factors for osseointegration, jeopardizing the healing process and thus the predictability of dental implant success on compromised patients. It is well accepted that preclinical studies in animal models reproducing the osteoporotic condition are one of the most important stages in the research of new biomaterials and therapeutic modalities. The aim of this systematic review was to investigate whether osteoporosis compromises dental implant osseointegration in experimental osteoporotic‐like conditions. A 3‐stage systematic literature research was conducted in MEDLINE via OVID and EMBASE up to and including March 2017. Experimental studies reporting on dental implant osseointegration on different osteoporotic animal models were assessed. The studies had to report on the percentage of bone‐to‐implant contact (% BIC ) as the primary outcome. ARRIVE guidelines for reporting on animal research were applied to evaluate the methodological quality and risk of bias of the studies. Fifty‐seven studies met the inclusion criteria and were assessed qualitatively. The most adopted animal model was the rat. A variability of % BIC values was observed, ranging from 30% to 99% and from 26% to 94% for the healthy and osteoporotic group, respectively. The great majority (47) of the included studies concluded that estrogen deficiency significantly affects BIC values, 9 studies stated that it was not possible to observe statistical differences in BIC between ovariectomized and healthy groups and 1 study did not provide a comparison between the healthy and osteoporotic group. Owing to the great heterogeneity in implant surface, study design, observation time‐points, site of implant placement and reported outcomes, a meta‐analysis could not be performed. An overall high risk of bias was observed, owing to the limited information on animal housing and husbandry, baseline characteristics and health status, ethical statement and allocation to the experimental groups provided. Although the available studies seem to suggest a lower osseointegration in osteoporotic‐like conditions, no robust conclusions can be drawn due to the great heterogeneity and overall low quality of the available studies. Future studies with emphasis on minimizing the possible sources of bias and evaluating osseointegration of dental implants placed into jawbones instead of long bones are warranted.