Nanostructured surfaces of dental implants

Abstract

The structural and functional fusion of the surface of the dental implant with the surrounding bone (osseointegration) is crucial for the short and long term outcome of the device. In recent years, the enhancement of bone formation at the bone-implant interface has been achieved through the modulation of osteoblasts adhesion and spreading, induced by structural modifications of the implant surface, particularly at the nanoscale level. In this context, traditional chemical and physical processes find new applications to achieve the best dental implant technology. This review provides an overview of the most common manufacture techniques and the related cells-surface interactions and modulation. A Medline and a hand search were conducted to identify studies concerning nanostructuration of implant surface and their related biological interaction. In this paper, we stressed the importance of the modifications on dental implant surfaces at the nanometric level. Nowadays, there is still little evidence of the long-term benefits of nanofeatures, as the promising results achieved in vitro and in animals have still to be confirmed in humans. However, the increasing interest in nanotechnology is undoubted and more research is going to be published in the coming years.

Figure 1

Difference between isotropic (uniform in all direction) and anisotropic distribution of surface nanofeatures. Due to the complexity of dental implants design these are usually anistropic.

Figure 2

Characterization on nano-surfaces: nanoscale features separated by nanoscale spaces; microscale features separated by nanoscale spaces; nanoscale features separated by microscale spaces.

Figure 3

Mesenchimal Stem Cells (MSCs) Differentiation Process. Nanostructured Surfaces promote MSCs osteogenic differentiation while limiting fibroblast differentiation.