USA

Merrill Lynch`s Implant Industry Report

A Merril Lynch analyst`s report on the dental implant industry has been released. Issues discussed include: the risk of increasing regulation of implant placement, image guided surgery`s growing importance, Nobel Biocare`s sales strategy and various implant company`s product launches. As always, a very interesting read.

Implant Direct – Dr Niznick Returns

Implant Direct LLC has received a FDA 510(K) Marketing Clearance for their Spectra System. Dr Niznick, inventor of the internal anti-rotational connection, has started his own dental implant design and manufacturing company that employs a web-based order and support model to deliver a versatile line of implants at about 50% of the price of the major manufacturers.

NIH funded study on Osteoporosis and Implants

The University of Connecticut Health Center has received a five-year, $2.6 million grant from the US National Institutes of Health to study the relationship between osteoporosis and the success or failure of regeneration and dental implants. They plan to recruit 120 women for the study. Specifically, the study is designed to help the researchers develop a reliable estimate of the two-year success rate of bone augmentation and dental implants in women with broadly varying bone density measurements.

Ghouls in the Mortuary – A Halloween Story

The perils of living in New York go beyond the grave. The directors of seven funeral homes have been stripped of their licenses and face jail after pleading guilty to their role in what one US official called “the crime of the century” – whenever they got hold of a suitable corpse, they would tip off a team of illegal body harvesters led by Michael Mastromarino, a former oral surgeon who had lost his dentist`s license. Operating out of a

NanoTite – HA splutter coated titanium surface

Bicon have developed a new surface process, NanoTite™. A high-energy ion beam source aims a beam of ions at the surface of a target treated with HA. These high-energy ions eject the HA from the target/substrate and create a molecular cloud whose molecules bond with the surface of the Bicon Ti 6Al-4V ELI implant. This Ion-Beam Assisted Deposition process, which provides increased integration with the implant surface, is known as High-Energy Sputter Deposition. Using an Ion-Beam Assisted Deposition process, the

rhBMP-2 Bone Regeneration Around Implants

Ulf Wikesjö of the Medical College of Georgia has demonstrated impressive osseous regeneration around dental implants coated with recombinant human Bone Morphogenic Protein (rhBMP-2). Dr. Wikesjö is researching wound-healing and tissue regeneration with a $1.4 million grant from Nobel Biocare. In laboratory tests, rhBMP-2 applied onto implants directs endogenous stem cells to become bone-forming cells. The result was a nearly complete regeneration of lost tissue. He hopes to start clinical trials in the summer of 2006.

John Gotti`s Blade Implants

Famous mafia boss John Gotti, Dr Leonard Linkow and blade implants – all part of the history of implantology. An amazing story reported by the NY Daily News in 2002. Enjoy: Around 1988, after losing several teeth, Gotti tired of dentures and had permanent implants surgically installed and his remaining teeth capped. He visited the E. 50th St. offices of Dr. Leonard Linkow, a frank-talking New Yorker with a shock of white hair. Linkow had been famous among dentists worldwide

Anti-Microbial Implant NanoSurface

Brown University engineers have shown that both zinc and titanium oxide nanosurfaces can reduce the presence of bacteria. Discs with nanostructured surfaces had bumps that measured only .023 microns in diameter. Discs with microstructured surfaces had bumps that measured about 5 microns in diameter. Microstructured zinc oxide discs were host to 1,000 times more bacteria than the nanostructured zinc oxide discs. Similar, but less striking, results were duplicated on titanium oxide discs. The engineer`s hypothesis is that: `with the nanostructured