Influence of bone elastic properties on the predicted stress distribution in the dental implant vicinity

Evaluation of stress distributions around dental implants via finite element method is an important task due to its implications over long-term survival of bone-implant assembly. However, the complexity of bone material implies approximations of elastic properties, which involve rough stress estimations. In this paper, we employed the procedure of generating Young moduli based on tissue radio density and compared the results, in terms of stress jump from implant to crestal bone, with the ones determined in the same points, but using homogenized Young moduli. It is shown that the homogenization procedure underestimates the stress jump in crestal bone.