Preclinical Rat Models in Oral Implant Dentistry: A Scoping Review of Study Design and Experimental Practices
Abstract
Background: Despite the widespread clinical use of dental implants, research in implant dentistry remains active, aiming to develop new materials, designs, and surface morphologies, as well as to better understand the biological mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of certain diseases to improve patient outcomes. In this context, preclinical animal models provide an essential opportunity to explore and validate new technologies and protocols before their application in humans. Although large vertebrate species have historically been preferred due to their biological similarity to humans, small animal models such as rats offer significant advantages. Additionally, they allow researchers to work with larger sample sizes, improving the statistical power of experimental outcomes. This scoping review aimed to analyze the current literature on intraoral rat surgical models in the field of implant dentistry. Methods: We included the preclinical studies using rat models focused on implant placement in the oral cavity and published in English. We excluded all studies that involved animal models other than rats or used implant placements in anatomical sites different from the target region. An electronic search was conducted in the PubMed and Scopus databases. From an initial 1032 results, 680 articles remained after duplicate removal. A first screening retained 191 articles, and after full-text review, 98 studies were ultimately included. The selection process was conducted…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a review, done in animal, not in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Metformin as an adjuvant in breast cancer treatment
- Metformin Lysosomal Targeting: A Novel Aspect to Be Investigated for Metformin Repurposing in Neurodegenerative Diseases?
- Aberrant HSF1 signaling activation underlies metformin amelioration of myocardial infarction in mice
- Metformin induces ZFP36 by mTORC1 inhibition in cervical cancer-derived cell lines
- Protein Interaction Network for Identifying Vascular Response of Metformin (Oral Antidiabetic)
- Preventing Long COVID With Metformin
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.