Influence of Splint Support on the Precision of Static Totally Guided Dental Implant Surgery: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the accuracy of totally guided implant placement with static surgical splints in relation to the different types of supporting tissues (tooth, mucosa, or bone).

Materials and Methods: This review was carried out following the PRISMA guidelines. An electronic search was done of the MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, and Cochrane Library databases, without publication year or language restrictions.

Results: The literature search yielded a total of 877 articles; 18 were included in the qualitative synthesis, and 16 of these articles were included in the quantitative analysis. The included studies presented a high risk of bias, except for one randomized clinical trial. The strength of the recommendations is therefore weak. In the angular deviation treatment, statistically significant differences were observed in the accuracy of the implants with tooth vs bone support: Bone support yielded 1.31 degrees greater deviation vs tooth support (SD = 0.43; 95% CI: 0.47, 2.15, P = .002). No significant differences were observed in the linear deviations.

Conclusion: Tooth support proved to be significantly more precise than bone support splints. There were no differences referring to horizontal coronal deviation, horizontal apical deviation, or vertical deviation according to the type of splint support used.