title: Zirconia in dental implantology: A review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Titanium has been the most popular material of choice for dental implantology over the past few decades. Its properties have been found to be most suitable for the success of implant treatment. But recently, zirconia is slowly emerging as one of the materials which might replace the gold standard of dental implant, i.e., titanium.
  
  
  METHODS
  Literature was searched to retrieve information about zirconia dental implant and studies were critically analyzed. PubMed database was searched for information about zirconia dental implant regarding mechanical properties, osseointegration, surface roughness, biocompatibility, and soft tissue health around it. The literature search was limited to English language articles published from 1975 to 2015.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 45 papers met the inclusion criteria for this review, among the relevant search in the database.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Literature search showed that some of the properties of zirconia seem to be suitable for making it an ideal dental implant, such as biocompatibility, osseointegration, favourable soft tissue response and aesthetics due to light transmission and its color. At the same time, some studies also point out its drawbacks. It was also found that most of the studies on zirconia dental implants are short-term studies and there is a need for more long-term clinical trials to prove that zirconia is worth enough to replace titanium as a biomaterial in dental implantology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Prosthodontics, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Melaka, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Abhishek
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Apratim
authors.affiliation: Department of Prosthodontics, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Melaka, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Prashanti
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Eachempati
authors.affiliation: Department of Prosthodontics, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Melaka, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Kiran Kumar
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Krishnappa Salian
authors.affiliation: Department of Periodontics, Melaka Manipal Medical College, Melaka, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Vijendra
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Department of Dentistry, New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Saurabh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chhabra
authors.affiliation: Department of Prosthodontics, Vaidik Dental College, Daman, Gujarat, India, India.
authors.forename: Sanket
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shah
keywords: Biocompatibility; mechanical properties; osseointegration; surface roughening; titanium dental implant; zirconia; zirconia and biocompatibility; zirconia and implant surface coating; zirconia and osseointegration; zirconia dental implant