EFFECT OF IMPLANT CURETS ON TITANIUM IMPLANT SURFACES

Purpose: To compare the surface roughness produced by various implant curets on titanium implant abutment surfaces. Materials and Methods: E ach of six titanium implants was divided into four quadrants, three ex perimental and an untreated control surface. The three experimental su rfaces were instrumented with a gold platinum curet, an unreinforced r esin curet, or a reinforced resin curet. Two implants were assigned to each of the following treatments: 128, 256 or 512 scaling strokes wit hin a 4 mm wide area. Photographs were taken of the surfaces with a sc anning electron microscope at approximately x500 magnification and cla ssified by six investigators according to surface roughness. Results: The surfaces were different at 8 and 16 years with P < 0.01 and P < 0. 0005, respectively. At 8 years, the surface roughness was significant between the treatments in the following ascending order: untreated, un reinforced resin curet, reinforced resin curet and gold platinum curet . Significant roughness was observed for surfaces treated by only the gold platinum curet and the reinforced resin curet at 16 years. The go ld platinum curet created the roughest surface P < 0.0006.