Evaluation of change in implant abutment after teeth surface modifications.

The surface modifications in teeth increase the retentive strength of cemented castings by providing micro as well as macro retentive ridge and groove patterns. Restoring the dental implants with cement-retained prosthesis is well known. Therefore, it is of interest to compare retentive property of implant abutments with and without circumferential grooves. Hence, 20 straight shoulder type titanium abutments were with abutment screws as well as prefabricated plastic copings and corresponding 12 mm-long stainless steel laboratory implant analogs were used. The abutments were divided into two subgroups of 10 abutments each: without grooves and with grooves. After thermocycling and storing the cemented abutments in water at 37°C water for 6 days they were assembled in the Universal testing machine and subjected to a pullout test (retention) at a crosshead speed of 5.0mm/min to record forces in Newton. Data suggest that the addition of grooves increased the retention. The mean retentive forces of standard machined abutments (plain) cemented with Resin modified GIC showed 339.34 N. Retention increased by 667.39N after addition of circumferential grooves. The surface modification of an implant abutment by means of circumferential grooves is an effective method of improving the retention of cast crowns cemented with resin modified GIC especially in short abutments.