Variation of roughness and adhesion strength of deposited apatite layers on titanium dental implants

It is known that surface roughness and chemical composition of the titanium surface influence the osseointegration of titanium implants. Most commercial dental implants offer a shot-blasted rough surface. It is also known that apatite layers coating the surface of titanium implants improve bone response, but the adhesion of the layer to the substrate poses some problems. In this study the roughness and adhesion strength to a titanium dental implant surface of an apatite layer deposited via wet chemistry after a thermochemical treatment were compared with those of plasma-sprayed apatite layers and machined titanium surfaces. Different surface conditions have been studied: (a) as-received machined dental implant surface; (b) grit-blasted titanium surface; (c) grit-blasted and thermochemically-treated titanium surface; (d) titanium surfaces coated with plasma-sprayed apatite. The morphology and roughness of the samples were measured and compared. The adhesion of the apatite layers to the titanium was compared by means of a scratch test. Measured roughness showed that the deposition of an apatite layer did not affect roughness but plasma-sprayed apatite produced a decrease on roughness values when compared to control samples. Both roughness and adhesion strength of the deposited apatite layer to the titanium substrate were higher than those of the plasma-sprayed apatite. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.