In vitro evaluation of cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of a commercial titanium alloy for dental implantology

Titanium and its alloys have many applications in dentistry, being used in orthodontics, endodontics, prosthetics and implantology. But the use in the biomedical field depends on its biocompatibility, as the Council Directive 93/42/EEC of 14 June 1993 concerning medical devices has established. The aim of this study was to investigate the cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of a commercial titanium/aluminium/vanadium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) developed by an innovative sand-blast process with aluminium oxide, and nitric-acid passivation. This procedure created a material with an average surface roughness of 1.73 +/- 0.16 mu m with applications in dental implants. International Organization for Standardization (ISO) procedures 7405:2008 and 10993-5:2009 were used to perform the cytotoxicity tests, and bacterial and cell-mutation assays to evaluate genotoxicity. The results show that this titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) was neither cytotoxic nor genotoxic in any of the tests performed. It can be concluded that this new Ti-6Al-4V material with the roughness characteristics specified shows good biocompatibility and can be considered of choice in dental implantology. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.