RESUMO
Among the local and systemic factors affecting bone repair, great interest is focused on age and gender. The aim of this work was to perform a histomorphometric evaluation of peri-implant bone healing response in male and female rats aged 1 and 3 months. Forty Wistar rats were i.p. anesthetized with xylazine and ketamine. A c.p. Ti implant (Implant Vel, Buenos Aires-Argentina) was placed in the right tibia following the method described by Cabrini et al. (Implant Dent 1993; 2:264-267). Group I: (GI, n = 10) female rats aged 1 month; Group II: (GII, n = 10) female rats aged 3 months; Group III: (GIII, n = 10) male rats aged 1 month; Group IV: (GIV, n = 10) male rats aged 3 months. All the animals were killed by ether overdose 30 days post-implantation. The tibiae were resected, radiographed and embedded in methyl-methacrylate. Ground sections perpendicular to the longer axis of the tibia were obtained and stained with toluidine blue. Percentage of osseointegration and peri-implant bone tissue volume were evaluated. No differences in peri-implant bone tissue histology were observed among groups. No statistically significant differences in peri-implant bone volume and percentage of osseointegration were observed between GII (adult females) and GIV (adult males). Peri-implant bone volume and percentage of osseointegration were markedly greater in GIV (adult males) than in GIII (young males) (14 +/- 1 mm2 and 8 +/- 2 mm2) p < 0.01 and (49 +/- 6
) p < 0.01 respectively. Using this experimental model, differences in peri-implant osteogenesis (bone volume and percentage of osseointegration) associated to gender were only observed in the young rats, and differences associated to age were found between the groups of males.