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Updated: Aug 7, 2025
Surgical Bone Implantation Technique for Rat Tibia Models of Diabetes and Osteoporosis
Published on: July 5, 2024
Results of thermal osteonecrosis for implant removal on electron microscopy, implant stability, and radiographic
Kristian Kniha1,2, Eva Miriam Buhl3, Faruk Al-Sibai4
1Department of Oral and Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery, University Hospital RWTH, Pauwelstraße 30, Aachen, Germany. kkniha@ukaachen.de.
Background:
This rat study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of temperature thresholds that affect peri-implant bone cells and morphology and the potential usefulness of thermal necrosis for inducing implant removal for a subsequent in vivo pig study.
Methods:
On one side, rat tibiae were thermally treated before implant insertion. The contralateral side was used as the control group without tempering. Temperatures of 4 °C, 3 °C, 2 °C, 48 °C, 49 °C, and 50 °C were evaluated with a tempering time of 1 min. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses were performed.
Results:
The EDX analysis revealed significant increases in element weights at 50 °C (e.g., calcium, phosphate, sodium, and sulfur; p < 0.01). The results of the TEM analysis showed that at all the applied cold and warm temperatures, signs of cell damage were observed, including vacuolization, shrinkage, and detachment from the surrounding bone matrix. Some cells became necrotic, leaving the lacunae empty.
Conclusions:
Temperature of 50 °C led to irreversible cell death. The degree of damage was more significant at 50 °C and 2 °C than at 48 °C and 5 °C. Although this was a preliminary study, from the results, we identified that a temperature of 50 °C at a time interval of 60 min can lower the number of samples in a further study of thermo-explantation. Thus, the subsequent planned in vivo study in pigs, which will consider osseointegrated implants, is feasible.
