The effect of inter‐implant distance on the height of inter‐implant bone crest

This was a radiographic study done on 36 patients who had machined titanium adjacent implants , 2 radiographs done and compared, one at implant placement and one  1- 3 years after using the parallelling technique and a bite block to get a reproducible position.
the 3 measurements made were

The inter implant distance (D)
The implant to crest of the inter-implant bone measured from each of the implants (A and B)
The vertical bone loss measured from implant abutment junction.(C)

 The results showed that there more lateral bone loss ie A+B  and vertical bone loss ie C (possibly because of the overlap in the lateral bone loss) was more when the D < 3mm .

The crestal bone loss was 1.04mm (no: of people measured was 25)  when the D < 3mm and C= 0.45mm when there was > 3mm inter implant distance.(D > 3mm)