Influence of the elastic modulus on the osseointegration of dental implants

Abstract

The load transfer from metallic prosthesis to tissue plays an important role in the success of a designed device. From a mechanical behavior point of view, the load transfer will be favored when the elastic modulus between the metallic implant and the bone tissue are similar. Titanium and Ti-6Al-4V are the most commonly used metals and alloys in the field of dental implants, although they present high elastic moduli and hence trigger bone resorption. We propose the use of low-modulus -type titanium alloys that can improve the growth of new bone surrounding the implant. We designed dental implants with identical morphology and micro-roughness composed of: Ti-15Zr, Ti-19.1Nb-8.8Zr, Ti-41.2Nb-6.1Zr, and Ti-25Hf-25Ta. The commercially pure Ti cp and Ti-6Al-4V were used as control samples. The alloys were initially mechanically characterized with a tensile test using a universal testing machine. The results showed the lowest elastic modulus for the Ti-25Hf-25Ta alloy. We implanted a total of six implants in the mandible (3) and maxilla (3) for each titanium alloy in six minipigs and evaluated their bone index contact (i.e., the percentage of new bone in contact with the metal—BIC%) after 3 and 6 weeks of implantation. The results showed higher BIC% for the dental implants with lowest elastic modulus, showing the importance of decreasing the elastic modulus of alloys for the successful osseointegration of dental implants.