Peri-implant osteogenesis in health and osteoporosis

Long-term clinical success of endosseous dental implants is critically related to a wide bone-to-implant direct contact. This condition is called osseointegration and is achieved ensuring a mechanical primary stability to the implant immediately after implantation. Both primary stability and osseointegration are favoured by micro-rough implant surfaces which are obtained by different techniques from titanium implants or coating the titanium with different materials. Host bone drilled cavity is comparable to a common bone wound. In the early bone response to the implant, the first tissue which comes into contact with the implant surface is the blood clot, with particular attention to platelets and fibrin. Peri-implant tissue healing starts with an inflammatory response as the implant is inserted in the bone cavity, but an early afibrillar calcified layer comparable to the lamina limitans or incremental lines in bone is just observable at the implant surface both in vitro than in vivo conditions. Just within the first day from implantation, mesenchymal cells, pre-osteoblasts and osteoblasts adhere to the implant surface covered by the afibrillar calcified layer to produce collagen fibrils of osteoid tissue. Within few days from implantation a woven bone and then a reparative trabecular bone with bone trabeculae delimiting large marrow spaces rich in blood vessels and mesenchymal cells are present at the gap between the implant and the host bone. The peri-implant osteogenesis can proceed from the host bone to the implant surface (distant osteogenesis) and from the implant surface to the host bone (contact osteogenesis) in the so called de novo bone formation. This early bone response to the implant gradually develops into a biological fixation of the device and consists in an early deposition of a newly formed reparative bone just in direct contact with the implant surface. Nowadays, senile and post-menopausal osteoporosis are extremely diffuse in the population and have important consequences on the clinical success of endosseous dental implants. In particular the systemic methabolic and site morphological conditions are not favorable to primary stability, biological fixation and final osseointegration. An early good biological fixation may allow the shortening of time before loading the implant, favouring the clinical procedure of early or immediate implant loading. Trabecular bone in implant biological fixation is gradually substituted by a mature lamellar bone which characterizes the implant ossoeintegration. As a final consideration, the mature lamellar bone observed in osseointegrated implants is not always the same as a biological turnover occurs in the peri-implant bone up to I mm from the implant surface, with both osteogenesis and bone reabsorption processes. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.