Junctional Epithelium or Epithelial Attachment around Implant: Which Term is Desirable?: A Review

Aim: review of previous relevant studies to assess histological differences in gingival tissue around dental implants and natural teeth to answer the question whether the tissue around dental implants is junctional epithelium or it better be named epithelial attachment.

Methodology: An electronic search of three databases (PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar) between May 1980 and May 2017 were performed. Full text, Histological and clinical evaluation, Animal and human studies were included.

Result: Of articles selected by each researcher after reading their abstracts, a total of 49 articles were selected after excluding the duplicates. The full texts of these articles were thoroughly read and were discussed. Finally, 45 out of 49 articles were found to be incomplete relevance to our topic based on our criteria and were reviewed. Some differences were seen in epithelial attachment around teeth and implant in terms of thickness, length and adhesion strength; moreover implant characteristics effect on epithelial attachment dimensions around implants.

Conclusion: According to existing studies, it seems that the origin of the epithelium around the implants is similar to the junctional epithelium around teeth histologically but there is controversial information on the similarities and differences between the epithelium around the tooth and the implant in terms of thickness, length and adhesion strength. Therefore, it is suggested to use the word “epithelial attachment” around implant instead of “junctional epithelium”.