Damping Factor as a Diagnostic Parameter for Assessment of Osseointegration during the Dental Implant Healing Process: An Experimental Study in Rabbits

• Published in: Annals of biomedical engineering Vol. 44; no. 12; pp. 3668 - 3678
• Main Authors: Feng, Sheng-Wei, Ho, Kuo-Ning, Chan, Ya-Hui, Chang, Kai-Jung, Lai, Wei-Yi, Huang, Haw-Ming
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-12-2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analyzers; Animals; Assessments; Biochemistry; Biological and Medical Physics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering; Biomedicine; Biophysics; Bone-Implant Interface - diagnostic imaging; Bone-Implant Interface - physiopathology; Bones; Classical Mechanics; Computed tomography; Damping; Dental Implants; Femur - diagnostic imaging; Femur - physiopathology; Healing; Osseointegration; Rabbits; Surgical implants; X-Ray Microtomography; Micro-CT; Dental implant stability; Resonance frequency; Histomorphometrical analysis; Noninvasive vibration analysis
• ISSN: 0090-6964; 1573-9686
• DOI: 10.1007/s10439-016-1675-6

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the possibility of using damping factor (DF) analysis to provide additional information on osseointegration of dental implants during the healing period. A total of 30 dental implants were installed in the bilateral femoral condyles of 15 rabbits. A DF analyzer detected with an impulse-forced vibration method and a commercialized dental implant stability analyzer based on resonance frequency (RF) analysis were used to measure the implant stability immediately after implant placement and 1, 2, 4, and 8 weeks post-surgically. Results of DF and RF analyses at different time points were compared with the corresponding osseointegration performance of dental implants via micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), histological and histomorphometrical analysis. The DF values revealed a decrease with time and reached 0.062 ± 0.007 at 8 weeks after implantation, which is almost 50% lower than the initial value. Moreover, highly significant correlations between DF values and bone volume densities (
R
2
 = 0.9797) and percentages of bone-to-implant contact measured at trabecular bone area (
R
2
 = 0.9773) were also observed. These results suggested that DF analysis combined with RF analysis results in a more sensitive assessment of changes in the dental implant/bone complex during the healing period than RF analysis alone.