Zirconia Implants Produced by Additive Manufacturing - A Scoping Review.

Introduction: Additive manufacturing is a tool with potential use in medicine and dentistry. The manufacture of metals and composites is already advanced, however, concerns about titanium hypersensitivity, tissue staining, and corrosion caused by gradual material degradation encourage research into more biocompatible alternatives.

Objective: This systematic scoping review aimed to gather studies that evaluated zirconia implants produced by additive manufacturing to describe the current stage of the printing technique and the final product.

Methods: Searches in Embase, PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases were enriched with manual searches between February and March 2021 and updated in June 2022 using keywords: zirconium implants, zirconium oxide, additive manufacturing, rapid prototyping, 3D printing, selective laser melting, and electron beam melting. The criteria included studies that evaluated or described zirconia implants obtained by 3D printing, with a direct relationship to dentistry or orthopedics.

Results: The database search resulted in 671 articles. Eight articles were selected for full reading and remained in this systematic review.

Conclusion: The printing technique for zirconia implants is promising. However, further studies are required before implants produced by the printing technique can be tested clinically. The literature with results regarding the impression product is still limited.