Titanium in Dentistry: Historical Development, State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Titanium is a metallic element known by several attractive characteristics, such as biocompatibility, excellent corrosion resistance and high mechanical resistance. It is widely used in Dentistry, with high success rates, providing a favorable biological response when in contact with live tissues. Therefore, the objective of this study was to describe the different uses of titanium in Dentistry, reviewing its historical development and discoursing about its state of art and future perspective of its utilization. A search in the MEDLINE/PubMed database was performed using the terms 'titanium', 'dentistry' and 'implants'. The title and abstract of articles were read, and after this first screening 20 articles were selected and their full-texts were downloaded. Additional text books and manual search of reference lists within selected articles were included. Correlated literature showed that titanium is the most used metal in Implantology for manufacturing osseointegrated implants and their systems, with a totally consolidated utilization. Moreover, titanium can be also employed in prosthodontics to obtain frameworks. However, problems related to its machining, casting, welding and ceramic application for dental prosthesis are still limiting its use. In Endodontics, titanium has been used in association to nickel for manufacturing rotatory instruments, providing a higher resistance to deformation. However, although the different possibilities of using titanium in modern Dentistry, its use for prostheses frameworks still needs technological improvements in order to surpass its limitations.

Antibiofilm activity of sandblasted and laser-modified titanium against microorganisms isolated from peri-implantitis lesions

“…and chemical stability. 18,19 There are plenty of studies in literature assessing the influence of titanium implant surface characteristics on biofilm formation. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26] In particular, increase in surface roughness and surface free energy seems to facilitate biofilm formation, although this conclusion is derived from largely descriptive literature.…”

Bonding of Dental Ceramics to Titanium: Processing and Conditioning Aspects

“…In order to remove the α-case layer, extensive grinding and airborne-particle abrasion have to be performed before the application of porcelain. To control α-case layer formation and to compensate for the high shrinkage of titanium, the conventional silica-phosphate refractory investment have been replaced by materials that have low reactivity and high expansion, and usually contain magnesium, yttrium, and zirconium [9,10,30].…”

“…Titanium is a metal known for its attractive properties for dental restorations, including high mechanical and corrosion resistance, excellent biocompatibility, low allergenic potential, and low cost [9]. It has the highest strength to weight ratio of other metals, which allows fabrication of light, comfortable and long-lasting dental restorations.…”

“…This layer is stable and self-limiting, protecting the metal from further oxidation and acting as an effective barrier against metal dissolution and release of ions. Titanium and its alloys are therefore widely accepted in dentistry and considered as the main materials of choice for constructing dental implants [9,10]. This should be taken into account when choosing suprastructure material since, when suprastructures and implants of different compositions (i.e., titanium implants and base metal suprastructures) are located in the oral environment, galvanic or coupled corrosion problems can develop [11].…”

A new method using insert-based systems (IBS) to improve cell behavior study on flexible and rigid biomaterials

“…The results confirmed the good biocompatibility of titanium found in numerous previous studies (Cochran et al 1994;Eisenbarth et al 1996;Gomez-Florit et al 2013;Grossner-Schreiber et al 2006;Hormia and Kononen 1994;Kononen et al 1992;Moon et al 2013;Nothdurft et al 2014;Pae et al 2009). Actually, titanium is a gold-standard material in the field of dental implant prosthodontics mainly due to its high corrosion resistance, low toxicity, very low allergenic potential and good biocompatibility properties (Jorge et al 2013). Regarding lithium disilicate glassceramic, HGF behavior on this material has been poorly studied (Brackett et al 2008;Pabst et al 2014;Tetè et al 2014).…”