Objective: To analyze the loss of abutment teeth for double crown-retained removable partial dentures (DC-RPDs) compared to clasp-retained removable partial dentures (C-RPDs). Method and materials: A search was conducted in the Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science databases, and a manual search. The search was conducted based on the PICO framework with inclusion and exclusion criteria. After extracting the data of selected studies, a meta-analysis was performed to estimate abutment loss with 95% confidence interval (CI). The statistical significance was defined as P < .05, and the heterogeneity of the data was assessed based on the chi-squared test and I2 statistics. Risk of bias assessment was conducted using Cochrane Risk of Bias tool and Newcastle-Ottawa Scale.
Results: A total of 4,692 records were identified from electronic databases and 38 studies were included for quantitative synthesis of 3,393 subjects with 13,552 abutment teeth. A total of 1,226 abutment teeth were lost with > 4,016 RPDs. Seven studies were compounded for > 668 C-RPDs (mean follow-up time ≤ 5 years) and six studies for 893 C-RPDs (mean follow-up time > 5 years), where the estimates of abutment loss were 5% (95% CI 2% to 8%) and 8% (95% CI 5% to 13%), respectively. The data were not significantly different (P = .1), and were heterogenous between the studies (τ2 ≥ 0.34, I2 ≥ 87.38%). Thirteen studies were compounded for 1,223 DC-RPDs (mean follow-up time ≤ 5 years) and eight studies for 1,033 DC-RPDs (mean follow-up time > 5 years), where the estimates of abutment loss were 6% (95% CI 5% to 8%) and 12% (95% CI 8% to 18%), respectively. The data were heterogenous (τ2 ≥ 0.17, I2 ≥ 75.86%), and were significantly different between the studies (P = .005). Overall, C-RPDs were not significantly different from DC-RPDs in abutment loss (P ≥ .3). A significant predictor for abutment loss was follow-up time with DC-RPDs (P = .005), where the risk of abutment loss per year was 18% (P = .0001). In contrast, follow-up time was not a significant factor for C-RPDs (P = .1). None of the included studies were at high risk of bias.
Conclusion: Within the limitations of the current systematic review and meta-analysis, abutment loss was not significantly different between C-RPDs and DC-RPDs. A significant predictor was follow-up time for DC-RPDs, whereas this factor was not significant for C-RPDs. Further research is needed to investigate critical factors for abutment loss with RPDs.