MAPPING IMPLANT STABILITY BY RESONANCE FREQUENCY-ANALYSIS

Although bone anchored titanium implants have a high clinical success rate, it is important to be able to monitor the tissue response follow ing placement of such devices and thereby possibly predict and avoid e arly failure, A non-invasive test method has been developed which util ises measurements of the resonance frequency of a small transducer att ached to an implant to monitor stability and the level of the surround ing bone, It was the aim of the investigation to assess if such measur ements could be made at different orientations around an implant surfa ce to map the stability and bone height, Threaded titanium implants we re placed in contralateral rabbit tibia. After 16 weeks resonance freq uency measurements were made by attaching a small transducer to the he ad of the implant fixture, Measurements were made at 10 degrees interv als around each implant, The results when plotted as frequency against orientation indicated a relationship between the right and left tibia and an increased bone level on Effective one tibia in the region wher e a polytetrafluoroethylene membrane had been placed.