Clinical and Radiographic Evaluation of Short Implants Placed in the Posterior Mandible: A 1-Year Pilot Split-Mouth Study.

In many cases, due to anatomical limitations, the placement of regular-length implants cannot be facilitated without the performance of advanced surgical procedures. However, these are associated with morbidity, prolonged treatment time, and costs. To overcome such disadvantages, short implants were introduced. The aim of this prospective pilot split-mouth study was to compare the clinical outcome between short implants (7 mm) and regular-length (≥10 mm) implants placed in the posterior mandible after 1 year of prosthetic delivery. Ten patients received 4 implants in the posterior mandible. Two short implants were placed in one side and 2 regular-length implants were placed contralaterally. These were restored by means of splinted screw-retained metal-ceramic crowns. Marginal bone loss (MBL) and soft-tissue parameters were compared. No implant failed. Both types of implants showed success rates of 90% and survival rates of 100%. From prosthetic delivery to 1 year post-loading a bone gain of +0.29 mm for short implants and +0.19 mm for regular-length implants was present without showing any statistically significant differences in MBL between the 2 implant types ( P > .05). Bleeding on probing, clinical attachment level, probing depth, and crown-to-implant ratio did not show any statistically significant differences between the 2 implant lengths ( P > .05). One case of chipping occurred in the regular-length implant group, leading to a prosthetic survival rate of 95%. Short implants showed a prosthetic survival rate of 100%. After 1 year, short implants showed comparable clinical outcomes to that of regular-length implants, making them a viable treatment option in the posterior mandible

Severity Scores in COVID-19 Pneumonia: a Multicenter, Retrospective, Cohort Study.

Identification of patients on admission to hospital with coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia who can develop poor outcomes has not yet been comprehensively assessed. To compare severity scores used for community-acquired pneumonia to identify high-risk patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. PSI, CURB-65, qSOFA, and MuLBSTA, a new score for viral pneumonia, were calculated on admission to hospital to identify high-risk patients for in-hospital mortality, admission to an intensive care unit (ICU), or use of mechanical ventilation. Area under receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC), sensitivity, and specificity for each score were determined and AUROC was compared among them. Patients with COVID-19 pneumonia included in the SEMI-COVID-19 Network. We examined 10,238 patients with COVID-19. Mean age of patients was 66.6 years and 57.9% were males. The most common comorbidities were as follows: hypertension (49.2%), diabetes (18.8%), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (12.8%). Acute respiratory distress syndrome (34.7%) and acute kidney injury (13.9%) were the most common complications. In-hospital mortality was 20.9%. PSI and CURB-65 showed the highest AUROC (0.835 and 0.825, respectively). qSOFA and MuLBSTA had a lower AUROC (0.728 and 0.715, respectively). qSOFA was the most specific score (specificity 95.7%) albeit its sensitivity was only 26.2%. PSI had the highest sensitivity (84.1%) and a specificity of 72.2%. PSI and CURB-65, specific severity scores for pneumonia, were better than qSOFA and MuLBSTA at predicting mortality in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. Additionally, qSOFA, the simplest score to perform, was the most specific albeit the least sensitive