Development of a surgical procedure for biointegration of a newly designed orthodontic onplant.

Aim: An onplant is an orthodontic anchorage device fixed to the bone surface with osseointegration. Compared with implants, the onplant has fewer limitations regarding placement and is less invasive. The purpose of this study was to clarify the effect of bone-surface treatment and the fixing method of a newly designed smaller-sized onplant and establish a prospective surgical procedure for placement of the onplant.

Methods: Thirty-eight onplants were placed in six beagle dogs. The bone surface was planed where the cortical bone was thick and reducible (bone-planed). Where the cortical bone was thin and uneven, a filling was inserted in the space between the onplant and bone (filled). The onplant was fixed to the bone in one of two ways: using a membrane that covered the onplant and fixing the membrane with titanium pins (membrane-fixed) or fixing the onplant directly to the bone using the same titanium pins (pin-fixed).

Results: Twelve weeks later, all the onplants were osseointegrated. The bone-planed group showed significantly (P < .05) larger shear stress than the filled groups. In the bone-planed group, the pin-fixed group showed significantly (P < .05) larger shear stress than the membrane-fixed group. The shear stresses were considered strong enough to function in orthodontic treatment.

Conclusion: The effect of the bone-surface treatment and the onplant-fixing method on the shear stress was clarified, and the findings in the present study may be useful for the improvement of surgical procedures for orthodontic onplants.