Osseointegration of Titanium Dental Implants with Plasma Nitriding Surface

Freitas, Gileade

A current goal of dental implantology research has been the development of titanium-based surfaces to accelerate/enhance osteogenesis adjacent to implants, allowing faster and long-lasting functional and aesthetic rehabilitation. Nitriding is a chemical treatment that in vitro seems to stimulate some initial events related to osseointegration (Park et al., 2003). This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of plasma nitriding surfaces on osseointegration of titanium dental implants. For this, the treatment conditions were 20% N₂ and 80% H₂, 450°C, 1.5 mbar during 1 h for planar and 3 h for hollow (Alves-Jr et al.,2005). Untreated implants were used as control. All implants were inserted into rabbit tibias for 6 weeks, harvested and processed for undecalcified histology to evaluate bone-to-implant contact (BIC) and bone area between threads (BABT). BIC and BABT data were compared using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey test and the signiﬁcance level was set at 0.05 (Table 1). All dental implants presented bone formation in close contact with their surfaces and there is no difference among planar, hollow and control surfaces in relation to BIC or BABT parameters. Thus, in this experimental model, both nitriding surfaces allowed for implant osseointegration but none treatment proved to be advantageous compared to untreated dental implants.

Table 1.Bone-to-implant contact (BIC) and bone area between threads (BABT).The values presented are the mean ± standard deviation.

	Hollow Cathode	Planar	Control	Anova

BIC	29.77±17.38	24,07±24.07	24.44±14.94	0,737
BABT	26.80±15.54	33,52±14.35	34.88±14.17	0,445

References:

Alves Jr C, Guerra Neto CLB, Morais GHS, Da Silva CF, Hajek V. Nitriding of titanium disks and industrial dental implants using hollow cathode discharge. Surf and Coat Tech. 2005;194(2-3):196-202.

Park J, Kima DJ, Kima YK, Leea KW, Leeb KH, Leec H, Ahn S. Improvement of the biocompatibility and mechanical properties of surgical tools with TiN coating by PACVD. Thin Solid Films. 2003;435:102-107.