“…Since bone tissue seems to respond to strains (Huiskes and Hollister, 1993), and strains are induced by stresses in adjacent structures such as dental implants, the advent of implantology brought the proliferation of FE analysis studies related to the effects of stresses created by dental implants on the surrounding bone (Kitoh et al, 1978;Takahashi et al, 1978;Weinstein et al, 1980;Cook et al, 1982a,b;Borchers and Reichart, 1983;Rieger et al, 1989;Siegele and Soltesz, 1989;El Charkawi et al, 1990;Rieger et al, 1990;Van Rossen et al, 1990;Mihalko et al, 1992;CIelland et al, 1991;Meijer et al, 1995 (1997) of changes in bone geometry on implant-derived stress distributions (Widera et al, 1976), a prediction that was corroborated in more recent studies (Borchers and Reichart, 1983;Clelland et al, 1993). These findings, in connection with histomorphometric ones, led to the application of more sophisticated FE analyses which combined the so-called global strain environment induced by implant loading with detailed, micromechanical strain predictions of the implant/bone interface (Ko et al, 1992b).…”