Relationship between surface properties (roughness, wettability) of titanium and titanium alloys and cell behaviour

Cell attachment and spreading to titanium-based alloy surfaces is a major parameter in implant technology. In this paper, substratum surface hydrophobicity, surface free energy, interfacial free energy and surface roughness were investigated to ascertain which of these parameters is predominant in human fibroblast spreading. Two methods for contact angle measurement were compared: the sessile drop method and the captive bubble two-probe method. The relationship between surface roughness and the sessile drop contact angles of various engineered titanium surfaces such as commercial pure titanium (cp-Ti), titanium-aluminium-vanadium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V), and titanium-nickel (NiTi), was shown. Surface free energy (SFE) calculations were performed from contact angles obtained on smooth samples based on the same alloys in order to eliminate the roughness effect. SFE of the surfaces have been calculated using the Owens-Wendt (OW) and Van Oss (VO) approaches with the sessile drop method. The OW calculations are used to obtain the dispersive (gamma(d)) and polar (gamma(p)) component of SFE, and the VO approach allows to reach the apolar (gamma(LW)) and the polar acid-base component (gamma(ab)) of the surface. From captive bubble contact angle experiments (air or octane bubble under water), the interfacial free energy of the different surfaces in water was obtained. A relationship between cell spreading and the polar component of SFE was found. Interfacial free energy values were low for all the investigated surfaces indicating good biocompatibility for such alloys. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.