Effect of systemic administration of Simvastatin on dental implant stability: A random clinical study

Abstract

Background: The primary objective for many researches carried out in dental implantology was to reduce the periodneeded for functional implant loading, simvastatin (cholesterol lowering medication) had many pleiotropic effects,one of which was increasing bone density around titanium implants (1) and subsequently establishing fasterosseointegrated dental implants (2,3). This study aims to reduce the period of time needed to establish secondarystability of dental implant measured in ISQ (Implant Stability Quotient) by investigating the effect of orallyadministered simvastatin on bone.Materials and methods: Simvastatin tablets (40mg/day for three months) were administered orally for 11 healthywomen aged (40-51) years old who received 15 dental implants (Dentium, Implantium) in the traumatic functionalimplant zone(4), this is the intervention group, the control group (n=11) received 14 dental implants in the same zone.3 dental implants in 2 subjects were lost, leaving a total of 26 dental implants in 20 patients with 10 patients in eachgroup. All subjects were radiographed with OPG for preliminary assessment and with CT scan for registering bonedensity in Hounsfield Units. Different dental implant sizes were used according to optimal patients' needs. Aninformed consent was obtained from the intervention group and the recommended monitoring protocol wasfollowed.Dental implant stability ISQ were recorded using RFA by OsstellTM ISQ for both groups three times: immediately afterimplant placement (at surgery) and after 8,12 weeks respectively.Results: Results showed that the mean implant stability for the intervention group was significantly higher P= 0.01 after12 weeks in comparison to that of the control group.Simvastatin showed statistically significant effect on implant stability among the intervention group after 8 and 12weeks (P value for both times <0.001) with the attributed risk percent was 70.8 and 50 respectively.Conclusions: This study concluded that the intervention group had higher implant stability and was ready forfunctional loading prior to control group and that simvastatin might enhanced and/or accelerated the process ofosseointegration.