Osseointegration of metallic implants. II. Transmission electron microscopy in the rabbit.

In a material of 10 osseointegrated implants of pure titanium, Tivanium, Vitallium, and stainless steel, 23 interface areas were studied by transmission electron microscopy. The implant site was the upper tibia of mature rabbits, and the observation time was 11 months. The absence of a cellular reaction was verified. However, even in cases of apparently uniform osseointegration, electron microscopy revealed an unpredictable variation in interface ultrastructure within 500-1,000 nm of the metal surface, common to all the materials. There was no structural feature that was specific for a particular material.