ON STANDARD CALIBRATION OF ISQ TRANSDUCER PEGS. Prerequisites for accurate and comparable RFA measurements

The resonance frequency analysis (RFA) technique is widely used for stability assessments of dental implants. The technique makes use of a transducer peg, which is attached to the implant and excited over a range of frequencies by electro-magnetic waves to measure the resonance frequency (RF) of the peg. The underlying RF in Hz is then translated to an Implant Stability Quotient (ISQ) on a scale of 100 ISQ units. It is of importance that different implant types with the same stability show the same ISQ value. One potential problem with the first RFA technique is that the different pegs for different implant types have not been properly calibrated. Research has shown that ISQ values correlate well with bone density at the implant site, i.e. interface stiffness and clamping ability of the surrounding bone. The present paper presents a novel technique for standard calibration of the new generation of ISQ transducer –the MulTipegTM.