Survival Analysis and Torque Loosening of Experimental Screw After Mechanical Performance for Micro Conical Abutment

Abstract

The most common failure in implantology are due to mechanical instability. Torque loosening or fracture of the screws are the most frequent complications. Furthermore, the fractured screw retrieval is complicated and time-consuming. So, modifications in the design of implant systems are justifiable to offer a greater degree of biomechanical stability. Thus, the present study proposes to evaluate an experimental geometry for abutment screw regarding failure probability and torque loss. Twenty implant/abutments sets (e-fix, A.S. Technology – Titanium Fix) were divided into the following groups (n=10 in each group): (1) Conventional screw (Screw neck ø 1.5 mm) and (2) Experimental screw (screw neck constricted ø 1.2 mm). The abutments were tightened with a controlled torque meter device following the manufacturer’s recommendations. Mechanical cycling was carried out with a load of 50 N.cm during 5 x 10 cycles with a frequency of 2 Hz at a temperature of 37 °C (ISO 14801). A digital torque meter was used to measure the reverse torque values of the prosthetic screw and the micro abutment screw, before and after loading. Data were statistically analyzed by One-way Anova and Tukey test (95 %). The results of the mean values of torque loss of the micro abutment screw were 58.44 % for the control group and 55.31 % for the experimental group and the mean torque loss for the prosthetic screw was 53.3 % and 61.3 % of the conventional and experimental groups, respectively. The survival probability was 100 % for both screw groups. It was concluded that experimental screw showed a similar behavior to conventional screws, showing similar reliability after fatigue life testing.