Evaluation of postoperative dental implant primary stability using 3D finite element analysis

The goal of this work was to use finite element analysis (FEA) to evaluate the primary stability of the dental implant without further in vivo measurements. Through proper simulations the information about stability could be obtained faster and easier than in vitro or in vivo studies. Four dental implants were chosen to evaluate their implant stability in various grades of bone. The 3D CAD models of these implants were reengineered via stereo microscopic measurements and the reengineered models were placed in artificial bone samples. Our approach was to simulate the micro mobility with FEA in various types of dental implants to see the differences between them and to convert the simulated micro mobility to Implant Stability Quotient (ISQ). The ISQ was chosen as the representation of implant stability because it is a general index-number of implant stability and it could also be measured with a standard commercially available device in clinics. After performing the simulations, the effect of the predrilling procedures on one exact implant type was investigated. Due to the numerous simulations it can be concluded that the implant stability (ISQ) can be effectively simulated via FEA, moreover the behavior of different implants in different type of surrounding bone tissues can also be evaluated. With this method it is possible to predict and to monitor the stability of known and also of novel dental implants before implantation.