Levin et al. conducted a similar study and investigated the success rate of retrieved dental implants that were re-implanted into dogs. The infected implants were re-implanted into dog jaws without any chemical or mechanical cleaning and the authors reported that there was no difference in terms of BIC percentage between the infected/reinserted and new dental implants after an appropriate healing period. In our study, the experimental groups were formed in line with the literature; in group 1, a highly effective decontamination method (APA and citric acid) was used, whereas in groups 2 and 3, autoclave sterilization was used for the decontamination of implant surfaces since autoclave is the most common method for the sterilization of surgical instruments and is widely used in dental implant laboratory studies. After the experiment, it was revealed that autoclave sterilization does not interfere with osseointegration, which implicates that autoclave sterilization is a useful method to be used in re-implantation procedures.

The main purpose of the current study was to evaluate the degree of osseointegration in the dental implants inserted for a second time following the treatment of the implant surfaces with peri-implantitis therapy. Unlike other peri-implantitis therapy approaches, the approach developed in this experiment allowed all the treatment procedures to be performed outside the mouth, thereby enabling the decontamination methods to be applied easily and uniformly to all the regions of the implants in a more standardized manner than would be possible intra-orally.

In conclusion, the results of this study indicated that there was no significant difference in the BIC percentages and the RFA measures between the implants retrieved due to peri-implantitis and re-implanted in the dog jaws and the new dental implants inserted for the first time. Moreover, the results also suggested that a dental implant retrieved due to peri-implantitis may be re-used in the same patient after decontamination of the implant surface. Nevertheless, despite the encouraging findings presented by this study, further studies including a larger number of implants are needed to substantiate the findings of our study.

APA:

Air powder abrasive

ARRIVE:

Animal Research Reporting in Vivo Experiment

BIC:

Bone-implant contact

IM:

Intramuscular

IV:

Intravenous

RFA:

Resonance frequency analysis

SLA:

Sandblasted and acid-etched