Study selection

Searches of EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Science Direct and MEDLINE generated 619 articles. After duplicate articles were removed, 566 unique articles were remaining. After the review of the titles and abstracts, 151 articles were accepted for further consideration, and 415 were rejected. After the full text was attained and reviewed for the 151 articles, 131 articles were rejected leaving 20 articles to be included in the systematic review (Fig. 1).

Study characteristics

The following data was extracted from the studies; study design, centres (single vs multiple centres), patient demographics (patient age, H&N cancer diagnosis), treatment modalities (surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy), donor site of autogenous bone graft, outcome measures, implant details (implant system, implant number, implant site, type of bone implant placed into (non-vascularised vs vascularised/free flap), implant placement surgical protocol implant survival/success/failure figures), implant definitions (implant survival/success/failure), type of prosthetic rehabilitation (fixed vs removable), and any reported complications.

Risk of bias within studies

There were varying scores attained by the studies using the MINORS assessment tool, ranging from 7/16 to 13/16 representing varying degrees of bias within the studies (Table 1).