Squamous Carcinoma after Dental Implants: A Clinical Case

Recent reports have highlighted the dramatic improvements achieved in dental implants and early detection of oral cancer. Numerous reports in the last few years have described the use of oral implants for rehabilitation of patients undergoing treatment for oral cancer. Only five of these reports (the first one published on 1983 and the last one on 2004) seem to describe the onset of oral cancer after the insertion of dental implants. Based on previously reported studies, we have tried to correlate both concepts, using a clinical case as experimental evidence. The clinical case reported here is a case of a 62-year-old woman, moderate ex-smoker, who quit tobacco 10 years ago; she consumed moderate amounts of alcohol for two years before the surgery. A few weeks after the implants were inserted in positions 41 and 31, she began to develop a fast-growing exophytic lesion around them. A histopathologic study revealed that the lesion was a moderately well-differentiated squamous cells carcinoma. Treatment consisted of partial mandiblectomy and removal of both right and left lymph nodes. This case suggests the need for exhaustive collection of data; and use of complementary diagnosis tools (imaging, biopsies) before any rehabilitation treatment with implants to prevent similar developments.