Abstract
It is known that early crestal bone loss occurs after implant treatment. The success criteria in implant treatments include the marginal bone loss of 1.0-1.5mm in the first year after loading. The possible factors that influence the phenomenon are loading, micro leakage at the implantabutment connection and disconnection, the characteristic of abutment surfaces, platformswitching and thickness of peri-implant mucosa. For the early bone loss is observed without loading and also in one-piece implant system, which does not have implant-abutment interface, influences of the loading and micro-leakage cannot be clearly demonstrated. In the meantime, the platform-switching tends to result in lesser bone loss. The materials which cannot integrate to connective tissue, repeating connection and disconnection of abutment, thickness of mucosa influences the amount of early bone loss. These findings indicate that early bone loss around implants may be chiefly caused by the epithelial down growth after implant penetration into mucosa.
