Finite element based bone remodeling and resonance frequency analysis for osseointegration assessment of dental implants

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been extensively used in design of new prostheses for characterizing biomechanical responses induced in human body. Dental implant, as one of such typical devices, has undergone a rapid development and clinical applications over the last two decades, where FEA has played an important role. One challenge faced by dental profession, however, is the way to assess the oral bone's osseointegration and remodeling in peri-implant region post surgery. Biomechanically, implantation largely changes local oral environment, subsequently resulting in bone apposition or resorption to adapt such a mechanical change. It is thus of significant interest to relate the bone remodeling to biomechanical responses in a non-invasive way. In this paper, we assess the change in the resonance frequency (or namely natural frequency) in line with the remodeling results from a time-dependent three-dimensional finite element simulation. A quantitative comparison was made against the resonance frequencies measured from the clinical follow-ups. The comparison demonstrated a satisfactory agreement between the developed bone remodeling simulation and clinical data, thus validating the computational prediction.