Modelling the early phases of bone regeneration around an endosseous oral implant

Abstract

The objective of this study was to see whether a mathematical model of fracture healing was able to mimic bone formation around an unloaded screw-shaped titanium implant as it is well-believed that both processes exhibit many biological similarities. This model describes the spatio-temporal evolution of cellular activities, ranging from mesenchymal stem cell migration, proliferation, differentiation to bone formation, which are initiated and regulated by the growth factors present at the peri-implant site. For the simulations, a finite volume code was used and adequate initial and boundary conditions were applied. Two sets of analyses have been performed, in which either initial and boundary condition or model parameter values were changed with respect to the fracture healing model parameter values. For a number of combinations, the spatio-temporal evolution of bone density was well-predicted. However reducing cell proliferation rate and increasing osteoblast differentiation and osteogenic growth factor synthesis rates, the simulation results were in agreement with the experimental data.

Keywords:

• mathematical model
• numerical simulation
• bone regeneration
• oral implant

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC) and The Research Council of Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven for the achievement of the PhD degree of Nadya Amor. Liesbet Geris is a post-doctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen).