Patient Satisfaction and Clinical Outcomes Following Implant-supported Fixed Restorative Treatment in the Esthetic Zone: A Systematic Review

Does implant-supported fixed restorative treatment in the esthetic zone improve patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes in terms of implant survival rate and prosthetic complications? The purpose of this systematic review is to determine patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes following implant-supported fixed restorative treatment in the esthetic zone. An electronic search was used to find the pertinent publications written exclusively in English and published up to April 2024. Based on the PICO framework, the main research question for this study was, “Does implant-supported fixed restorative treatment in the esthetic zone improve patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes in terms of implant survival rate and prosthetic complications?” By looking at titles, abstracts, and full texts of the articles, it was possible to verify their relevance and see if they met the inclusion criteria. A quality assessment of the listed studies was conducted using specialized tools. Out of the 154 results returned by the database search, 129 were removed due to incomplete, inconsistent, or missing information. Six papers were removed after 25 full-text papers were evaluated for eligibility. For that reason, the current systematic review contains a total of 19 papers. It was done to evaluate the studies’ quality. Meta-analysis was not possible since the data were determined to be diverse. This systematic review demonstrates implant-supported fixed restorative treatments in the esthetic zone generally achieve favorable clinical outcomes and high patient satisfaction. Due to variability in study quality and moderate to high risk of bias – especially in randomization and intervention deviations – findings should be interpreted with caution. Despite generally positive esthetic and functional outcomes, inconsistencies in measurement and follow-up highlight the need for well-designed, long-term randomized controlled trials with standardized protocols.