A prospective clinical study in humans of an endosseous dental implant partially covered with a powder-sintered porous coating: 3- to 4-year results.

: A dental implant covered partially with a porous coating (EndoPore) developed at the University of Toronto was tested. This new implant is a tapered, truncated-cone endosseous root-form implant fabricated from Ti-6Al-4V. It utilizes a powder-sintered porous surface geometry over most of its length to promote three-dimensional bone ingrowth and implant stabilization. In this trial, three implants were placed in the anterior mandibles of 52 patients and were used subsequently as free-standing units to support an overdenture. Much shorter implants, shorter initial healing periods, and simpler surgical techniques than are customary with other implant designs were used. At the time of this report, all patients with implants had passed 3 years of function, and the cumulative implant success rate was 94.8%. Analysis of carefully standardized radiographs revealed a pattern of crestal bone loss similar to earlier published dog data. On a yearly basis, the mean bone loss was 0.43 mm in year 1, 0.17 mm in year 2, and 0.13 mm in year 3.