[Carbon/carbon implants in oral and maxillofacial surgery--Part 2]. / Karbon/karbon implantátumok az arc- és állcsontsebészetben--2. rész.

In their previous report, the authors presented observations regarding the long-term application of carbon/carbon implants. After evaluating the good functional and aesthetic results, the effect of the human body on the structure and morphology of the implants was investigated with state of the art methods. An implant retrieved from the body after eight years was compared to implants which were sterilized but not implanted (reference). Carbon and oxygen were the main components of both implants, however, as a result of the interaction with the human body the amount of oxygen increased 3-4 times and phosphorus, sulphur, calcium and iron were detectable as trace elements on the surface. The width of the carbon fibres (5-7 µm) building up the implants was not changed during the interaction with the human body. The surface of the implant retrieved from the human body was covered with a 15-17 µm thick layer, not present on the reference implant, having a similar composition to that of the carbon fibres (high amount of calcium that is typical to bone tissue was not detected). According to these results, the structure and the morphology of the implants were not altered notably by the human body.

Localization factor: a new parameter for the quantitative characterization of surface structure with atomic force microscopy (AFM).

In this work we present the possible application of a new parameter called localization factor for the quantitative characterization of surface structures with atomic force microscopy (AFM). For this purpose contact mode AFM images were taken from technologically different polycrystalline gold thin films and were evaluated according to the following parameters: surface roughness (R(a), R(RMS)), roughness factor (f(r)) and localization factor. The localization factor was compared with the other surface parameters. We demonstrate that this new parameter can be used to identically characterize these gold thin film surfaces with contact mode AFM in the 1-1000 µm(2) scan range. The mathematical background and possible application fields of the localization factor are also discussed in our paper.