Open Access

Vivian Tuchscheerer, Peter Eickholz, Bettina Dannewitz, Christoph Martin Ratka, Otto Zuhr, Hari Petsos

• Objectives: Evaluation of surgical and non-surgical air-polishing in vitro efficacy for implant surface decontamination. Material and methods: One hundred eighty implants were distributed to three differently angulated bone defect models (30°, 60°, 90°). Biofilm was imitated using indelible red color. Sixty implants were used for each defect, 20 of which were air-polished with three different types of glycine air powder abrasion (GAPA1–3) combinations. Within 20 equally air-polished implants, a surgical and non-surgical (with/without mucosa mask) procedure were simulated. All implants were photographed to determine the uncleaned surface. Changes in surface morphology were assessed using scanning electron micrographs (SEM). Results: Cleaning efficacy did not show any significant differences between GAPA1–3 for surgical and non-surgical application. Within a cleaning method significant (p < 0.001) differences for GAPA2 between 30° (11.77 ± 2.73%) and 90° (7.25 ± 1.42%) in the non-surgical and 30° (8.26 ± 1.02%) and 60° (5.02 ± 0.84%) in the surgical simulation occurred. The surgical use of air-polishing (6.68 ± 1.66%) was significantly superior (p < 0.001) to the non-surgical (10.13 ± 2.75%). SEM micrographs showed no surface damages after use of GAPA. Conclusions: Air-polishing is an efficient, surface protective method for surgical and non-surgical implant surface decontamination in this in vitro model. No method resulted in a complete cleaning of the implant surface. Clinical relevance: Air-polishing appears to be promising for implant surface decontamination regardless of the device.