private company industry dental implants and dental prosthetics . founded 1985 headquarters boston massachusetts united states area served worldwide products dental implants implant abutments individualized cad cam prosthetics abutments crowns bridges overdenture bars components for guided surgery dental drills training and education for dental professionals number of employees 200 website 1 bicon dental implants is a privately owned company located in boston ma . the company specializes in short dental implants that use a locking taper or cold welding connection to secure the abutment to the implant . bicon is notable and worthy of mention for the following three reasons first bicon implants are extremely short in length . 1 2 3 4 the size of bicon implants allow them to be placed in regions that are crowded with natural teeth and or implants or in regions that would otherwise require bone grafting . 5 second the implants do not have the screw form design typical of other available implants . 6 third the abutments are connected to the implant via a locking taper . this is notable from both a medical and engineering standpoint as no other implant company offers an implant with a biological seal at the implant abutment interface ; almost all other implants possess an internal screw to connect their abutments . 6 contents 1 history 1.1 vietnam war 1.2 1970s 1980s 1.3 1980s 1990s 1.4 1990s present day 2 reception 3 products 4 references 5 external links history edit bicon has been in operation since june 1994 . prior to bicon its main product line was under the ownership of two other entities driskell bioengineering 1985 1987 and stryker corporation 1988 1994 of kalamazoo michigan . the following section briefly describes the history of the bicon company and the dental implant products that it offers . vietnam war edit the style of implant offered by bicon can trace its provenance to the battelle memorial institute in columbus ohio where in 1968 the us army medical research and development command dental research division funded a project aimed at developing prosthetics to address the influx of craniofacial injuries sustained by personnel in the escalating vietnam conflict . 7 8 research performed by the implant s inventor thomas driskell showed that a multi finned plateau design more effectively distributed occlusal forces to the underlying bone as compared to contemporary screw form implants . 9 using rhesus monkeys as an experimental animal driskell et al. were able to demonstrate direct bone to implant contact in the plateau style implant a process called osseointegration . 9 furthermore the implant designed by driskell possessed a sloping shoulder that in later years would be shown to play a role in the maintenance of crestal bone height and a natural looking interdental papillae . 10 with the advent of the 1970s renewed interest in the use of ceramics began to develop . in 1975 driskell et al. unveiled the synthodont implant an implant made of high density aluminum oxide al2o3 . 9 unlike other conventional screw type implants the synthodont implant design incorporated the use of the fins that had proved so successful in the u.s. army project . 11 12 13 plateau root form prf or finned dental implants of three different sizes . 1970s 1980s edit in the late 1970s following the initial successes of the synthodont implant driskell et al. introduced the titanodont implant . the titanodont implant was composed of surgical grade titanium grade 5 ti 6al 4v . the titanodont implant was unique for three main reasons . first the titanodont implant allowed for complete interchangeability with abutments of varying diameters and angles . this interchangeability allowed for a more natural biological width . second the implant was grit blasted and acid etched which provided both a larger surface area and more preferable substrate for cells involved in osseointegration . third and perhaps most importantly the titanodont implant had a locking taper abutment connection which allowed 360 of abutment positioning along with a bacterial seal . unlike screw form implants the locking taper connection design prevents the infiltration of bacteria into the implant crypt and surrounding tissues . 14 15 16 1980s 1990s edit in the mid 1980s driskell and his partners formed a company called db bioengineering . db bioengineering received pre market notification in october 1985 for the implant driskell and his team had developed at batelle now known as the db precision fin implant system . two short years later in 1987 db engineering along with the db precision fin implant system were sold to the multinational conglomerate the stryker corporation . 17 at this juncture the db precision fin implant system possessed the qualities that separated it along with modern bicon implants from its competitors a sloping shoulder specialized titanium instrumentation and a slow speed drilling system . slow speed drilling was included in order to prevent the thermal damage induced by the high speeds conventional drilling . 18 19 20 21 1990s present day edit following its purchase from db bioengineering stryker held control of the db precision fin implant system for 7 years . 22 owing to its large size as well as being more accustomed to dealing with purchasing agents at large hospitals stryker lacked the infrastructure necessary for direct interaction and sales with private practice dentists . in late 1993 stryker made plans to sell the db precision fin implant system . catching wind of the sale dr. vincent morgan current owner and president of the company along with other business partners formed a group whose purpose was the acquisition of the implant system . in 1994 stryker sold the db precision fin implant system to a group based in boston which at that point in time had been renamed bicon dental implants or simply bicon a name that is a portmanteau of the latin bi meaning two and con indicating the simple two part design of the implant abutment connection . 23 bicon s headquarters are located in jamaica plain a historic neighborhood in boston massachusetts . 24 the company employs 200 people and offers their implant system in 77 countries . reception edit bicon has been called the smallest of the large implant companies . 25 manufactured in the u.s.a. for nearly 30 years bicon implants have been generally well received . 23 26 27 28 because bicon implants utilize a unique press fit system instead of a screw many clinicians have been hesitant to implement their use . 29 other clinicians praise the bicon implant design for both its ease of use versatility and cost effectiveness . 26 30 like other dental companies that use or have used hydroxyapatite coated implants or hydroxyapatite derivatives e.g. zimmer straumann nobel biocare dentsply etc. bicon too has been criticized for the use of hydroxyapatite . 17 31 bicon implants have also been criticized for their small size ; however following a series of scientific studies these concerns were shown to have been unwarranted . 32 33 34 35 36 37 unbeknownst to its creators at the time the bicon implant design i.e. namely the use of fins or plateaus along with a hemispherical base took advantage of a biological phenomenon called load bearing platform switching lbps . 10 briefly platform switching occurs when the diameters of the implant and abutment are unequal . 10 lbps results when the hemispherical base of the abutment generates a load onto the tissue below it . 10 this mechanical stimuli induces bone repair and maintenance and results in crestal bone gain coronal to the implant . 10 38 39 bicon dental implants have been successfully functioning in patients since the inception of the product line in 1985 . implants retrieved after 18 years show evidence of lamellar bone consisting of multiple layers and multiple osteonic structures . 40 41 depending on the surgical procedure implant size implant coating and patient the long term survival rate for bicon dental implants ranges from 92.2 % to 100 % . 27 40 41 42 43 products edit in addition to dental implants bicon also offers implant abutments tricalcium phosphate and other dental restorative materials . as mentioned in the introduction one of the reasons bicon implants are notable and also a source of criticism is because of their small size . bicon implants referred to as short or ultrashort can be as short as 5.0 mm . this allows the implants to be placed in regions that would otherwise require a sinus lift or bone graft . 35 references edit s nchez garc s ma ; costa berenguer x ; gay escoda c 2012 . short implants a descriptive study of 273 implants . . clin implant dent relat res . 14 4 508 516 . doi 10.1111 j. 1708 8208.2010.00301.x . pmid 20977605 . yi ys ; emanuel km ; chuang sk 2011 . short 5.0 5.0 mm implant placements and restoration with integrated abutment crowns . implant dent . 20 2 125 30 . doi 10.1097 id .0 b013e31820fb67e . pmid 21448021 . birdi h ; schulte j ; kovacs a ; weed m ; chuang sk 2010 . crown to implant ratios of short length implants . . j oral implantol . 36 6 425 433 . doi 10.1563 aaid joi d 09 00071 . pmid 20545533 . schulte john ; flores arturo ; weed meghan 2007 . crown to implant ratios of single tooth implant supported restorations . j prosthet dent . 98 1 1 5 . doi 10.1016 s0022 3913 07 60031 6 . pmid 17631168 . davydova ob ; kostin io 2012 . experience of using short bicon implants for treatment of partial and complete teeth loss . stomatologiia mosk . 91 6 59 62 . pmid 23268222 . a b misch carl e 2008 . contemporary implant dentistry 3rd ed . . st. louis elvesier . pp. 1 200 . isbn 9780323043731 . khot sandeep ; park buhm ; longstreth wt 2011 . the vietnam war and medical research untold legacy of the u.s. doctor draft and the nih yellow berets . . acad med . 86 4 502 508 . doi 10.1097 acm .0 b013e31820f1ed7 . driskell thomas ; o hara martin ; niesz dale 1972 . surgical tooth implants combats and field . battelle columbus labs ohio defense technical information center . p. 35 . a b c driskell td ; heller al 1977 . clinical use of aluminum oxide endosseous implants . . j oral implantol . 7 1 53 76 . pmid 273703 . a b c d e urdaneta rainier a ; seemann rudolf ; dragan irina florentina ; lubelski william ; leary joseph ; chuang sung kiang 2014 . a retrospective radiographic study on the effect of natural tooth implant proximity and an introduction to the concept of a bone loading platform switch . . int j oral maxillofac implants . 29 6 1412 1424 . doi 10.11607 jomi .3699 . pmid 25397804 . bhaskar sn ; cutright de ; knapp mj ; beasley jd ; perez b ; driskell td 1971 . tissue reaction to intrabony ceramic implants . . oral surg oral med oral pathol . 31 2 281 289 . pmid 5277379 . br nemark per ingvar 1983 . osseointegration and its experimental background . . j prosthet dent . 50 3 399 410 . doi 10.1016 s0022 3913 83 80101 2 . pmid 6352924 . leonard gary ; coelho pg ; polyzois ioannis ; stassen leo ; claffey noel 2009 . a study of the bone healing kinetics of plateau versus screw root design titanium dental implants . . clin . oral impl . res . 20 3 232 239 . doi 10.1111 j. 1600 0501.2008.01640.x . pmid 19397634 . zipprich h ; weigl p ; lauer hc 2009 . micromovements at the implant abutment interface measurement causes and consequences . implantolgie . 15 31 45 . harder sonke ; dimaczek birka ; acil yaha ; terheyden hendrik ; freitag