Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare two impression techniques of the implant site: impression with provisional restoration (technique 1) and impression with standardized impression post with material injected into the sulcus (technique 2). Methods: Fourteen patients with 15 single tooth implants (Spline, Centerpulse Dental, Carlsbad, CA) were immediately provisionalized to develop the tissue architecture. After 16 weeks, two final impression techniques were performed in each implant site. Technique 2 was performed after technique 1 within 2 minutes. The width from buccal to lingual gingival crest and depth of the implant from top of implant to buccal margin of the soft tissue were measured from the soft tissue cast of both techniques. The data were analyzed using paired t-test and Pearson Correlation. Results: The mean values of bucco-lingual width from buccal and lingual gingival crest of technique 1 and 2 were 7.27±0.68 mm and 5.70±1.08 mm, respectively. The paired t-test revealed that there is a significant difference at p<0.001. From the Pearson correlation analyses, the final impression with provisional restoration technique did not correlate to the depth of the implant (p=1.0), and the final impression with standardized impression post with material injected into the sulcus did not significantly correlate to the depth of the implant (p=0.30) at the p<0.05 level. The difference of bucco-lingual width of the final impression between 2 techniques did not correlate to the depth of the implant (p=0.07), which was not statistically significant within limited test samples. Conclusions: The final impression with provisional restoration was more accurate and fewer components are required than the impression with standardized impression post with material injected into the sulcus.

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