A Data Mining Analysis on Niobium in Dentistry: Promising Alloys for Dental Materials.

Objective: To investigate the trends of research on niobium (Nb) in dentistry to determine its use in dental materials. Material and Methods: Electronic searches were carried out in six databases. Studies that evaluated niobium alloys in dentistry in vitro, in situ, and in vivo (humans and animals) were included. Data on publication year, authors, country, journal, study design, application area, niobium alloy, study approach, assay type and results (positive, negative and null compared to controls) were grouped and analyzed in VantagePoint™ and Excel. Descriptive analyses of frequency, cross-tables and co-occurrence matrices were performed. Results: After screening, 315 studies published between 1977 and 2021 were included, with an increase in publications between 2011 and 2021 (n=209; 66.3%). “Doi, H” was the top author (n=9; 2.8%), and Brazil was the most productive country (n=70; 22.2%). “Dental Materials” was the major contributing journal (n=24; 7.6%), and most studies were carried out in vitro (n=266; 84.4%), under implant surfaces (n=162; 51.4%), followed by dental prostheses (n=77; 24.4%) and restorative materials (n=27; 8.6%). The most common niobium was a ternary alloy (n=147; 46.7%), which was mainly tested in vitro via structural characterization or material improvement (n=131; 41.6%). Mechanical assays (n=114; 36.2%) were the most prevalent. Positive effects of niobium were found in 264 articles (83.8%), and negative effects were found in 13 articles (4.1%). Conclusion: The number of studies on niobium has increased over time, resulting in improvements in the mechanical properties of materials used in dental practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]