Statement of problem: The ceramic neck implant is a novel implant design for tooth replacement. The novel design has a ceramic shell that covers the neck of the titanium implant and masks its dark color, which gives an appearance that mimics natural dentition.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to in vitro test an optimized version of the ceramic neck implant for future clinical testing in patients. The aim was to determine the fatigue resistance of the ceramic shell under cyclic loading to simulate chewing function. This is the third article in a three article series to test a novel dental implant design with a ceramic neck in-vitro.
Materials and Methods: Thirty4.1mm (D) X 10mm (H)Grade 4 commercially pure tissue level, endosseous implants were used. The implants were divided into two groups (n=15) Group I (control) and Group II which had a novel ceramic neck design. All implants were placed in type 3 saw bone. Single tooth abutments, 7mm in height were inserted and torqued to 35Ncm. Identical CAD/CAM crowns were milled and adhesively cemented to abutments. Specimens were fatigue tested until failure using a computer controlled universal testing machine. Cyclic compressive fatigue test was done according to the modified “staircase" method. Mean ± SD was calculated according to specific statistical equations. Student t-test was done between two groups (α = 0.05).
Results: Implants without ceramic shell recorded a higher mean value of fatigue failure load (328.3±102.4) than novel design implants with ceramic shell (269.5±54.7). The difference between two groups was not statistically significant (P= 0.18 > 0.05).
Conclusions: No statistical significant difference between the two groups means that the mechanical fatigue failure test showed high fracture resistance to cause failure of the ceramic shell.