Bone Regeneration with Monetite Granules

Bone regeneration techniques are needed for increasing bone quantity and quality in areas where insufficient bone volume prevents the stabilization of osteointegrated dental implants.

Objective:

Dicalcium phosphate or monetite (CaHPO4) is biocompatible, biodegradable, and is the most stable calcium phosphate at low pH. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether local application of monetite granules would induce bone regeneration in critical size defects on rabbits calvaria.

Methods:

Moreover, after encouraging animal results, approval was obtained from a human clinical trial cometee to compare apatite bovine bone substitute (Bio-OssŪ) with the novel monetite acidic calcium-phosphate granules as bone regeneration materials in post extraction alveolar sockets.

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether local application of monetite granules would induce bone regeneration in critical size defects on rabbits calvaria.

Results:

In the animal study, the histological observations showed signs of graft resorption as newly formed bone tissue grew surrounding and penetrating the monetite granules. Histomorphometric evaluation showed that the augmented bone volume as well as the augmented mineral tissue was higher in the defects treated with monetite granules (p<0.05) 8 weeks after the intervention. In this animal model, local application of the novel monetite granules in bone defects enhances bone healing significantly.

Three months after implantation in dental patients, the defects grafted with Bio-Oss revealed high radiopacity while monetite granules showed similar radiopacity to that of surrounding bone. During dental implantation surgery, it was found that the sites grafted with BioOss; contained a large amount of residual graft granules, while the monetite graft sites resembled autologous bone.

Conclusions:

In this study we compared the bone augmentation capacity of Bio-OssŪ with a monetite based material. The novel monetite granulate showed excellent in vivo behaviour which indicated great potential for bone regeneration in dental clinics as an alternative to BioOssŪ.