Titanium Periimplant Tissue Alterations: A Prospective Cohort Plate Retrieval Study

Commercially pure titanium and titanium alloys have been extensively used in materials to reconstruct the facial skeleton in different forms and sizes. There is yet to be a consensus on removing (or not) the plates and screws after osteosynthesis. Our study tries to investigate the adjacent tissues of the titanium plates used in jaw surgery using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. Twenty samples of soft tissue surrounding the titanium plates were retrieved 1 year after placement (fracture sites or orthognathic surgery) and were investigated using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. The study found 1.06 ppm titanium in the adjacent soft tissues. Even if there are no clinical signs of the presence of titanium in the soft tissues, our findings suggest that a plate removal is a feasible option for patients to avoid local complications due to titanium migration.