Peri-implantitis is a severe problem of dental implants in which bone regression can reach a point where you need to extract the implant and threads become visible. A disease that affects roughly 30% of the implantees and that has no cure yet. Many mechanisms have been invoked, related to inflammation and release of particles.
This paper addresses the problem from the implant side rather than the bone tissue, and we show, for what seems to be the first time at the nanoscale, that the native protective titanium oxide gets severely degraded on extracted implants. The possible take home message is that if this oxide layer can be made more resistant to the intra-oral atmosphere, part of the problem (or perhaps part of the cause) will be resolved. The paper is the result of Amit Shavit’s M.Sc. thesis, co-supervised by Dr. keren Shemtov-Yona, and is in press in Applied Surface Science Advances.
