Comparison of conventional and synchrotron radiation based microtomography of bone around dental implants

This study explores the application of conventional micro tomography (muCT) and synchrotron radiation (SR) based muCT to evaluate the bone around titanium dental implants. The SR experiment was performed at beamline W2 of HASYLAB at DESY using a monochromatic X-ray beam of 50 keV. The testing material consisted of undecalcified bone segments harvested from the upper jaw of a macaca fascicularis monkey each containing a titanium dental implant. The results from the two different techniques were qualitatively compared with conventional histological sections examined under light microscopy. The SR-based muCT produced images that, especially at the bone-implant interface, are less noisy and sharper than the ones obtained with conventional muCT. For the proper evaluation of the implant-bone interface. only the SR-based muCT technique is able to display the areas of bony contact and visualize the true 3D structure of bone around dental implants correctly. This investigation shows that both conventional and SR-based muCT scanning techniques are non-destructive methods, which provide detailed images of bone. However with SR-based muCT it is possible to obtain an improved image quality of the bone surrounding dental implants, which display a level of detail comparable to histological sections. Therefore, SR-based muCT scanning could represent a valid, unbiased three-dimensional alternative to evaluate osseointegration of dental implants.