Genotoxicity Induced by Dental Implants In Vitro and In Vivo? A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis

The aim of this systematic review was designed to help further elucidate the following question: Are dental implants able to induce DNA damage in vitro or in vivo? The systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA-P guidelines. After searching the literature, full manuscripts from 19 studies were carefully selected by the authors. Regarding the general characteristics, endosseous implant was studied in ten manuscripts, and titanium disks were researched by 4 authors; two studies evaluated more than one type of material: titanium miniplates and endosseous implants, cylinders; endosseous implants and rectangular-shaped titanium miniplates, ceramic composites and titanium particles were research objects only once. Following the parameters for evaluating the risk assessment, 7 manuscripts had strong scores, another 8 papers reached the moderate score, and another 4 scored poorly. The meta-analysis data did not reveal a statistically significant difference in the micronucleated cells of the dental implants patients compared to the control (SMD = 0.22, 95% CI − 0.12 to 0.56, p = 0.20), with a Tau2 = 0.00; Chi2 = 0.01, and p = 0.92, so that the selected manuscripts were considered homogeneous and the I2 of 0% indicated low heterogeneity. In our findings, after evaluating the works, it was observed that the results of the characteristics of the dental implants did not induce genotoxicity.