title: Influence of a zirconia sandblasting treated surface on peri-implant bone healing: An experimental study in sheep.
abstract: A sandblasting process with round zirconia (ZrO(2)) particles might be an alternative surface treatment to enhance the osseointegration of titanium dental implants. Our previous study on sheep compared smooth surface titanium implants (control) with implant surfaces sandblasted with two different granulations of ZrO(2). As the sandblasted surfaces proved superior, the present study further compared the ZrO(2) surface implant with other surface treatments currently employed: machined titanium (control), titanium oxide plasma sprayed (TPS) and alumina sandblasted (Al-SL) at different times after insertion (2, 4 and 12weeks). Twelve sheep were divided into three groups of four animals each and underwent implant insertion in tibia cortical bone under general anaesthesia. The implants with surrounding tissues were subjected to histology, histomorphometry, scanning electron microscopy and microhardness tests. The experimentation indicated that at 2weeks Zr-SL implants had the highest significant bone ingrowth (p<0.05) compared to the other implant surfaces, and a microhardness of newly formed bone inside the threads significantly higher than that of Ti. The present work shows that the ZrO(2) treatment produces better results in peri-implant newly formed bone than Ti and TPS processing, whereas its performance is similar to the Al-SL surface treatment.
authors.affiliation: Human Anatomy Institute of the Department of Human Anatomical Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy. beatrice.bacchelli@unibo.it
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bacchelli
authors.forename: Gianluca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giavaresi
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Franchi
authors.forename: Désirée
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Martini
authors.forename: Viviana
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: De Pasquale
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Trirè
authors.forename: Milena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fini
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Giardino
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ruggeri
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001860:Bone Plates; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D017102:Fracture Healing / Q000502:physiology*; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D012756:Sheep; D013499:Surface Properties; D013978:Tibial Fractures / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D015040:Zirconium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D015040:Zirconium; C028541:zirconium oxide