SYNOPSIS
Prosthetic alloys corrode in the oral cavity over a prolonged period, eluting trace amounts of constituent ions into the saliva. The adverse effects of the eluted ions on biological safety have become a major problem in the dental field. Thus, various alloy compositions resistant to corrosion in the oral cavity have been intensively investigated.
We hypothesized that small amounts of such metal ions would act on cells to promote capillary angiogenesis. Then, the effects of Ag, Cu, In, Pd, Sn, and Zn, possibly eluted from silver alloys that are used widely in the dental field, on human angiogenesis were investigated using an angiogenesis kit (Kurabo), demonstrating that capillary angiogenesis was slightly promoted by exposure to a trace amount of Zn ions. Furthermore, promotion of capillary angiogenesis was not observed in the case of mixing all of the metal ions.
Moreover, capillary angiogenesis is observed within a narrow Zn concentra-tion range. Thus, a method to stabilize and maintain Zn ion elution should be de-veloped for application to dental regenerative medicine.

Key words: angiogenesis, silver dental alloys, Zn ion, in vitro