Can male patient’s age affect the cortical bone thickness of jawbone for dental implant placement? A cohort study

Abstract

Dental implants are among the most common treatments for missing teeth. The thickness of the crestal cortical bone at the potential dental implant site is a critical factor affecting the success rate of dental implant surgery. However, previous studies have predominantly focused on female patients, who are at a high risk of osteoporosis, for the discussion of bone quality and quantity at the dental implant site. This study aimed to investigate the effect of male patients’ age on the crestal cortical bone of the jaw at the dental implant site by using dental cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). This study performed dental CBCT on 84 male patients of various ages to obtain tomograms of 288 dental implant sites at the jawbone (41 sites in the anterior maxilla, 95 in the posterior maxilla, 59 in the anterior mandible, and 93 in the posterior mandible) for measuring the cortical bone thickness. A one-way analysis of variance and Scheffe’s test were performed on the measurement results to compare the cortical bone thickness at implant sites in the four jaw areas. The correlation between male patient age and cortical bone thickness at the dental implant site was determined. The four jaw areas in order of the cortical bone thickness were as follows: posterior mandible (1.07 ± 0.44 mm), anterior mandible (0.99 ± 0.30 mm), anterior maxilla (0.82 ± 0.32 mm), and posterior maxilla (0.71 ± 0.27 mm). Apart from dental implant sites in the anterior and posterior mandibles, no significant correlation was observed between male patients’ age and the cortical bone thickness at the dental implant site.