For Decades, the choice in dental implants has been limited: threads or fins.

Both threaded implants and finned implants have strengths and weaknesses. The strength of threads is high initial stability, and the weakness of fins is low initial stability. On the other hand, the weakness of threads is low resistance to infection over the long term, whereas fins provide high resistance to infection over the same period.

The strengths and weaknesses of threads and fins are due to the design. For example, threaded implants have a continuous incline plane which wraps around the central core. This creates a continuous surface. Much like a wood screw can remain secured for hundreds of years, a threaded implant, assuming it is placed correctly, can be tightly secured into human bone. However, there is a downside to having a continuous plane: Bacteria can easily travel down a continuous path for the entire length of the implant. Imagine a marble rolling down a continuous, screw-like plane. It rolls round and round until it reaches the bottom. Thus, a threaded implant provides high initial stability but with a higher risk of infection.

Similarly, finned implants are limited by their design. Unlike the threaded implant, which can fasten into bone, a finned implant can only be press-fitted into the bone. Thus, instead of a screw-into-wood connection, the result is more akin a golf tee in the ground. However, the finned implant has one massive advantage over threaded implants: It has an interrupted surface between its threads such that the bone can form sealed compartments. This acts like watertight compartments in the hull of a ship, and it’s almost impossible for the bacteria to leapfrog the threads to the bottom of the implant. Thus, the finned implant provides low initial stability, but it greatly decreases the risk of infection.

What if there was a hybrid between these implant thread designs that could provide high initial stability and a lower risk of infection? There is such a design: The Split-Fin Implant.

The Split-Fin implant is a hybrid between the threaded implant and the finned implant that captures the strengths of each designs and discards the weaknesses. The Split-Fin Implant could also be described as an Interrupted Thread Implant. It is described as a “split-fin” because each fin is “split” such that it opens slightly to form compartmentalized threads. One could describe it as an “interrupted thread” because out of every two threads, one is removed. The result is threaded compartments. Therefore, the Split-Fin Implant captures the stability of threaded implants and the long-term security of finned implants while eliminating the disadvantages of each.

(Patent: US20190321140A1)