LAUSR

The study aimed to evaluate the effect of internal silver coating as a countermeasure to crestal bone loss around implants with or without multiple abutment disconnections/reconnections. Following tooth extraction, 48 implants with connected healing abutments (24 implants internally coated with elemental silver) were placed in the mandible of eight beagle dogs. Two months after implant surgery one side of the mandible was randomly assigned to four abutment manipulations (disconnection/reconnection) on a weekly basis. At 4 months postoperative, biopsies were obtained and prepared for histomorphometric analysis. Healing abutment manipulation increased crestal bone remodeling when compared to no abutment manipulation (1.28 mm versus 0.92 mm, respectively), although the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.0836). Overall, an internal silver coating did not provide a statistically sufficient implant treatment characteristic as a countermeasure to crestal bone loss (p = 0.7801). These findings indicate that the controlled variables explored here (abutment manipulation/internal silver coating) have a limited effect on initial crestal bone loss. Abutment manipulation during prosthetic work does not seem to harm the peri-implant soft and hard tissues.