Word: vitallium
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...Replacing lost teeth is a tricky business at best. Fastening a false tooth to its "virgin" neighbors may undermine those adjacent teeth. Using anchors of stainless steel or vitallium to implant the replacement often causes infection or deterioration of the jawbone. A promising new technique developed by the University of Southern California school of dentistry and the Vitredent Corp. of Los Angeles seems likely to overcome both problems. The empty socket is filled with a root replacement of vitreous carbon; then the false tooth is fastened to this foundation. Carbon, the base of all living matter, is compatible with human...
...semiburied implant, using a Vitallium latticework placed on the mandible, or lower jaw. As the process is described in Implant Dentures (Lippincott; $12) by Drs. Aaron Gershkoff and Norman I. Goldberg of Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, soft tissues are sutured over the lattice, leaving four posts protruding in the mouth to support and anchor dentures...
...date, the semiburied method has shown better powers of retention, stability and chewing efficiency, but because chewing sets up great stresses and mandibles change shape over periods of time, the Vitallium lattice tends to become ill-fitting and protrude from the gums. The magnet implant stays in place longer, and observations over a five-year period show no loosening or irritation. Says Dr. Behrman confidently: "This is a technique with a future...
Their method is simple, requiring only a piece of vein and a few bits of bloodvessel-sized vitallium tubing. (Vitallium is the non-irritating surgical alloy.) Given an artery with a section missing or damaged, the doctors snip each end neatly, then cut a section of one of the patient's own veins for a patch. (Loss of a vein is not dangerous, as other veins readily take over its work...
...piece of vitallium tubing shorter than the vein section is slipped over it and the vein ends turned back over the tube like cuffs. One artery end is then slipped over each end of the cuffed tube. Result: the insides of vein and artery heal together in a permanent natural weld. The vitallium can be left in place forever...