Techniques for retrievability and for registering screw access holes in cement-retained implant-supported prostheses: A scoping review of the literature

Statement of problem: After implant rehabilitation, clinicians may need to remove a restoration because of technical and biological complications. For cement-retained implant-supported prostheses (ISPs), the retrievability process may damage the components of the prosthesis, the intaglio surface of the implant, or the abutment screw. To avoid that, the screw access hole (SAH) of the dental implant abutment (DIA) should be registered. Although several clinical reports and dental techniques have been proposed, a review of existing techniques is lacking. Purpose: The purpose of this scoping review was to evaluate the different techniques described for retrievability and for registering the SAH of cement-retained ISPs. Material and methods: An electronic search of English language dental literature in the PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, and SciELO databases was conducted from 1980 to December 2017 with appropriate keywords and phrases. A hand search of relevant dental journals was also completed, and exclusion criteria were applied after full-text evaluation. Results: The electronic and hand search revealed 325 articles. However, 252 publications were discarded after duplicates were removed. After reading the title and abstracts, 15 studies were excluded, and the full text of 64 publications was screened for inclusion and exclusion criteria. Forty studies were selected and included for final evaluation. The evaluation revealed 6 techniques for retrievability and 9 techniques for registering the position of the SAH, divided into 2-dimensional (2D) and 3-dimensional (3D) techniques. Conclusions: Cement-retained ISPs can be effectively retrieved by using interim cements and possibly by using a combined cement- and screw-retained design. Vacuum guides with guiding sleeves and computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD-CAM) guide templates are possible effective 3D techniques for registering the screw access channel (SAC) location and angulation.