Extended Abstract
Preventing Bacterial Leakage in Implant-Abutment
Connection: A Review †
Dorina Lauritano 1,*, Giulia Moreo 1, Francesco Carinci 2, Alberta Lucchese 3, Dario di Stasio 3,
Fedora della Vella 4 and Massimo Petruzzi 4
1 Department of Medicine and Surgery, Centre of Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca,
20126 Milan, Italy; moreo.giulia@gmail.com
2 Department of Morphology, Surgery and Experimental Medicine, University of Ferrara,
44121 Ferrara, Italy; crc@unife.it
3 Multidisciplinary Department of Medical-Surgical and Dental Specialties, University of Campania—Luigi
Vanvitelli, 80138 Naples, Italy; alberta.lucchese@unicampania.it (A.L.);
dario.distasio@unicampania.it (D.d.S.)
4 Interdisciplinary Department of Medicine, University of Bari, 70121 Bari, Italy;
fdellavella@gmail.com (F.d.V.); massimo.petruzzi@uniba.it (M.P.)
* Correspondence: dorina.lauritano@unimib.it; Tel.: +39-335-679-0163
† Presented at the XV National and III International Congress of the Italian Society of Oral Pathology and
Medicine (SIPMO), Bari, Italy, 17–19 October 2019.
Published: 10 December 2019
1. Introduction
Osseointegration can be affected by oral conditions, in particular the micro gap at the
implant-abutment-connection (IAC) represents a site for dental plaque aggregation favoring
bacterial leakage that can increase inflammatory cells at the level of the IAC, causing peri-implantitis
[1]. This micro gap, once early colonized, may constitute a bacterial reservoir, that could
subsequently contaminate fixture’s surroundings and interfere with peri-implant tissues health [2,3].
2. Aim
The aim of this review is to describe, according to the most recent literature, the different kind
of implant-abutment connection and their ability to reduce bacterial leakage and thus preventing
peri-implantitis.
3. Materials and Methods
The following database were consulted: Pubmed (n = 26), Scopus (n = 90), Research gate (n = 7)
and were found a total of 123 articles. Duplicates were excluded and after reading abstract and titles,
were excluded those articles that were off topic. The remaining ones (n = 24) were assessed for
full-text elegibility: we excluded 5 articles because they were case report, 2 because there was no
clear reference to the relationship IAC and bacterial leakage and 2 because was not pertinent with
the argument. Fifteen articles were included in the review.
4. Results and Conclusions
From the review, it’s clear that exists a relationship between the IAC and bacterial leakage. All
the connection presented an amount of micro-gap and bacterial micro-leakage but conical and mixed
connection systems seem to behave better. Moreover, both connections seem to have a better load’s
distribution and mixed one has also anti-rotational properties very useful during the positioning of
the prosthesis [4].
Proceedings 2019, 35, 13; doi:10.3390/proceedings2019035013 www.mdpi.com/journal/proceedings
Proceedings 2019, 35, 13 2 of 2
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
