The main drawback of narrow dental implants is their lower resistance to fatigue, resulting in fracturing and a limited life. This is due to various factors, including the material the implants are made of and their shape and surface. However, the study “Fatigue of Narrow Dental Implants: Influence of the Hardening Method”, led by UIC Barcelona, has shown that varying the composition of the material with which they are made, can prevent fracturing and therefore the breaking of the implant. Xavier Gil and Román Pérez, researchers from the Bioengineering Institute of Technology, and Jordi Gargallo and Pablo Altuna, researchers from the Faculty of Dentistry, took part in the research. Their article was recently published in the scientific journal Materials.
As the authors explain in the study, new hardening treatments allow for the mechanical limitations of conventional narrow implants to be overcome in dynamic conditions. They affirm, “These hardening treatments allow for the design of narrow dental implants with enhanced fatigue life and long-term behaviour.”
