Retrospective study to identify associations between clinician training and dental implant outcome and to compare the use of MATLAB with SAS

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to identify any associations between predictor variables, mainly clinician training and dental implant outcome, among the residents in different departments and to compare statistical analysis with the use of MATLAB R2017a™ to SAS version 9.4. METHODS: Dental records were reviewed from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2015. Two thousand forty-eight dental implants were placed on 471 patients seen by residents from the departments of Periodontics, Prosthodontics, and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center School of Dentistry. The following parameters were investigated by means of multilevel logistic regression analysis: demographics, implant parameters, department, and residents’ year of training. RESULTS: A total of 1449 implants were included in the study. Overall, within a 1–5-year time period, 1343 (92.6%) implants had survived and 106 (7.4%) implants failed. Discipline (p = 0.0004), residents’ year of training (p < 0.0001), and implant systems (p = 0.0024) showed significant associations with implant outcome. Periodontics had a survival rate of 94.14% followed by Prosthodontics (91.48%) and OMFS (89.64%). The survival rates of implants by year of training were as follows: third-year Periodontics and OMFS (94.20%), second-year (89.38%), and first-year (88.6%). CONCLUSION: The level and type of clinician training had an impact on implant outcome in different residency programs. Further studies will be necessary to identify the reasons for the differences in implant failure rates.