Screw Versus Cement Retained Restoration: A Decision Making Analysis

Author(s):

Subhashree R*, Nivedhitha MS and Harini Kumaran

Dental implant is one of the treatment options to replace the missing teeth. Screw retention and cement type of retention are the two methods of retaining a fixed implant supported restoration. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Prosthesis can be screw or cement retained depending on various factors like surface area of abutment, height of abutment, taper or parallelism of abutment, etc. Cement retained prosthesis can be retrieved easily, has better esthetics, passivity, good occlusion, reduced cost, reduced chair side time, less complex and better loading than screw retained. Screw retained prosthesis can be used when interarch distance is less or when implants are not placed in proper alignment. 86000 patient records were reviewed and a total of 342 patients who had undergone treatment for implant prosthesis were selected and their treatment details such as Implant brand, type of implant prosthesis, amount of interact space available were reviewed and analysed. Details were tabulated using excel and imported into SPSS for statistical analysis. 69.3% of prosthesis given was cement retained restoration and 30.7% of prosthesis were screw retained restoration. When interarch distance was adequate cement retained prosthesis was preferred and while interarch distance was inadequate screw retained prosthesis were preferred. This study concluded that cement retained crowns were more preferred than screw retained when the interarch distance was adequate and the commonly used implant brand as Nobel biocare.