Monitoring of Fixture Osteointegration after BAHA® Implantation

Abstract

The osteointegration phase of BAHA® fixture was assessed via electrical impedance spectroscopy in BAHA® implantees. Measurements were carried out by using a prototype device and were correlated with previously published histological data obtained at certain times after surgery, i.e. 1–2 days, 1 week, 1 and 3 months. Module variations of impedance spectra were found to be in agreement with the different pathophysiological conditions of bone ingrowth. The proposed methodology has shown to be promisingly reliable to properly monitor BAHA fixture osteointegration.

Development of a Novel Medical Device for Mucositis and Peri-Implantitis Treatment

“…Finally, the application fields of the apparatus can potentially be extended. Different body parts affected by inflammation-related pathologies could be considered; on the other hand, the use of such a device in dentistry could be extended to the monitoring of bone level in dental implants, since a correctly osseointegrated implant provides a higher bioimpedance value, due to growth at the tissue-implant interface [66,67]. Moreover, the stability of the implant could be evaluated considering the phase of the measured impedance [68].…”

EIS measurements for characterization of muscular tissue by means of equivalent electrical parameters

“…Impedance measurements have been proposed from a long time to study skeletal muscle, the first research works date back to the late 50s and early 60s [5,29,30] and they are still employed as a noninvasive tool for assessing different physiological or illness states [4,8,10,11,17]. However, analysis of the muscular status is a complex topic, since various and numerous physiological and psychological phenomena contribute to the muscle condition so that a set of techniques may be necessary for its characterization [31].…”

“…It was developed for (i) managing the acquisition board; (ii) setting and controlling the stimulus, by means of a loop procedure, in order to maintain constant the voltage drop, at a value here called Vp, over the portion of tissue under measurement (in accordance with the typical procedure employed in EIS measurements [18]); (iii) checking the amplitude of current stimulus (kept within safety levels) [8,17]; (iv) implementing a sine-fitting technique [20], to reduce the influence of noise in the final impedance computation; (v) averaging modulus and phase of five measurements for impedance evaluation and (vi) generating and saving an ASCII file with all the impedance parameters.…”

“…As the impedance of biological tissue is frequency dependent, important information can also be obtained measuring tissue in a range of frequencies; this technique is generally referred to as electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) [5,6]. EIS measures have already produced interesting results in different clinical applications [1,[7][8][9][10]. For example, the method has been successfully employed for characterizing in vivo changes in skin electrical properties due to drug delivery or for monitoring the osteointegration process of metallic implants for auditory recovery; this technique has been used also for studying changes in electrical properties of muscular tissue at low levels of contraction or for testing health condition of muscles in elderly subjects.…”

“…For example, the method has been successfully employed for characterizing in vivo changes in skin electrical properties due to drug delivery or for monitoring the osteointegration process of metallic implants for auditory recovery; this technique has been used also for studying changes in electrical properties of muscular tissue at low levels of contraction or for testing health condition of muscles in elderly subjects. However, additional investigations are needed to better highlight complex mechanisms involved in tissue's intrinsic changes [7][8][9]. Muscular impedance depends in fact on different factors, such as biochemical changes, structure and geometry of the muscle itself, direction of http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2014.09.013 0263-2241/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.…”