The role of biological width around dental implants: A review

Background and Objective: Generally, the tissues surrounding implants are of two types: soft tissue, and hard tissue. What we are concerned within this paper is the soft tissue around implants, which is called peri-implant mucosa and consists of epithelium and connective tissue. Similar to natural teeth, the soft tissue around implants features a groove, at the base of which the junctional epithelium joins the surface of the implant with the connective tissue lying beneath. Biologic width is created during the wound healing process, as a natural immediate response to implant placement, occurring subsequent to the closure of the mucoperiosteal flap. This process may take place after uncovering surgery in implants which are placed using a two-stage procedure. Attachment of the soft tissue creates a seal between the external environment (oral cavity) and the internal body environment, preventing the infiltration of harmful substances produced by microbes. The purpose of the present review is critical evaluation of the available data regarding anatomy and histology of the biologic width around implants. It also aims to critically explore factors that may influence the peri-implant biologic width, and their effects on clinical parameters around implants.Materials and Methods: Access to the available literature on this subject, published between 1921 and 2016, was achieved through searching electronic databases as well as hand searching relevant journals.Findings: The soft tissue around teeth and implants have common characteristics while showing some important differences.Conclusion: Some studies have reported larger values for peri-implant biologic width compared to that of natural teeth. The current research project, however, supplied contradictory data with regard to the dimensions of the biologic width when different factors were taken into account.

کلیدواژه ها:

Biologic width ، Connective tissue attachment ، Junctional epithelium ، Peri-implant soft tissue