Bone cell adhesion on ion implanted titanium alloys

Cell attachment has shown to be highly sensitive to ion implantation parameters. Although some quantitative differences have been observed, the more significant differences were qualitative. AFM analysis has shown that the star-shaped bone cells attached spread more and occupied larger surfaces like in osseointegration prone surfaces, most probably due to extracellular matrix synthesized around them, while other surfaces showed mainly large and narrow shaped or round shaped bone cells often with great cellular nucleus in the middle of the cells and little extracellular matrix around. So, ion implanted surfaces that facilitate osseointegration have been identified, in terms of initial bone cell attachment quality, where although the number of attached cells were not necessarily always larger, they tended to occupy wider areas with healthier cells.