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Updated: May 9, 2026
An Improved Mechanical Testing Method to Assess Bone-implant Anchorage
Published on: February 10, 2014
Morphological evaluation of the active tip of six types of orthodontic mini-implants
Flávia Mitiko Fernandes Kitahara-Céia1, Tatiana Féres Assad-Loss, José Nelson Mucha
1UFF, Niterói, RJ, Brazil. flaviamitiko@yahoo.com.br
Objective:
To morphologically evaluate the active tip of six different types of self-drilling mini-implants for orthodontic anchorage.
Methods:
Images of the active tips of the mini-implants were obtained with a Zeiss optical microscope Stemi 200-C, with magnification of 1.6X. The images of the surface were viewed with the Axio Vision program (Zeiss, Jena, Germany) to calculate linear and angular measures. Mini-implant morphology and the details of tips and threads were also evaluated through Scanning Electronic Microscopy (SEM) (JEOL, model JSM5800 LV - JEOL, Tokyo, Japan) with magnifications of 90X and 70X, respectively. The evaluation of the mini-implant taper shape was assessed using the formula: (b - a) / (2 x D).
Results:
The following variables were measured: (1) active tip width, (2) major diameter of external thread, (3) minor diameter of internal thread and taper of the mini-implant, (4) number of threads and lead of the screw, (5) angle of thread, (6) flank width and (7) pitch width.
Conclusions:
Mini-implants from different manufacturers presented active tips with different characteristics. Mechanical testing is necessary to correlate the analyzed characteristics aiming to determine the best performance.
