%0 Journal Article
%T Development of a new quantitative gas permeability method for dental implant-abutment connection tightness assessment
%A Jacques-Henri Torres
%A Michael Mechali
%A Olivier Romieu
%A Paul Tramini
%A Sylvie Callas
%A Fr¨¦d¨¦ric JG Cuisinier
%A Bernard Levallois
%J BioMedical Engineering OnLine
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1475-925x-10-28
%X A new nitrogen flow technique was developed for implant-abutment connection leakage measurement, adapted from a recent, sensitive, reproducible and quantitative method used to assess endodontic sealing.The results show very significant differences between various sealing and screwing conditions. The remaining flow was lower after key screwing compared to hand screwing (p = 0.03) and remained different from the negative test (p = 0.0004). The method reproducibility was very good, with a coefficient of variation of 1.29%.Therefore, the presented new gas flow method appears to be a simple and robust method to compare different implant systems. It allows successive measures without disconnecting the abutment from the implant and should in particular be used to assess the behavior of the connection before and after mechanical stress.Dental implant systems presently found on the market are mainly made of two pieces: the implant itself (placed inside the alveolar bone) and the abutment (which goes through the gum and supports the prosthesis). The connection between those two pieces appears to be a key point for implant success. Essentially, besides mechanical considerations, a gap between those two pieces may allow bacterial proliferation, inflammation and peri-implant bone loss [1-6]. It appears an important challenge to assess the tightness of this connection. This has already been tested by:- showing microbial leakage at the implant-abutment interface in patients [7,8] and in vitro [6,9-15];- placing a color marker between the implant and the abutment and measuring its leakage by spectrophotometry [16,17];- and, more recently, studying tightness against endotoxins [18].These techniques hardly provide a quantitative and reproducible way to measure the leakage, as it was demonstrated in endodontics [19]. Indeed, many techniques have been used to investigate the sealing ability of root filling procedures and materials. Some leakage investigations, like dye spectrometry [20
%U http://www.biomedical-engineering-online.com/content/10/1/28