Dental News - Metal foam takes stress off dental implants

Claudia Salwiczek, DTI

Tue. 9 March 2010

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NEW YORK, USA/LEIPZIG, Germany: A newly developed metal foam that mimics the natural structure of bones could help to prevent the rejection of biomedical body replacements such as dental implants. The composite material, which is made out of 100% steel and aluminium, is lighter than solid titanium and has an extraordinarily high-energy absorption capability, a paper by researchers at the North Carolina State University, USA, reports. In addition, the modulus of elasticity of the foam has been proven similar to that of bone.

Modulus of elasticity has been demonstrated as extremely important for biomedical implants. When a dental implant is placed in the body to replace a bone, it needs to manage the loads in the same way as the surrounding bone. If the modulus of elasticity of the implant is much larger than the bone, the implant will take over the load bearing and the surrounding bone will start to die, a process called stress shielding.

While bone has a modulus of between 10 and 30 GPa, materials currently used for dental implants such as titanium have a modulus of approximately 100 GPa and higher.

“Our foam can be a perfect match as an implant to prevent stress shielding,” said Dr Afsaneh Rabiei, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NC State and co-author of the paper. “The rough surface of the metal foam will also bond well with the new bone formed around it and let the body build inside its surface porosities.”

He concluded that through these features, mechanical stability and strength of implants inside the body could be significantly increased in the future.

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