[Permanent percutaneous electric connection. General principles].

Abstract

The Swedes for more than twenty years, and the Germans for over five years have been able to maintain inert or active prostheses with permanent percutaneous connections, thanks to the dependable and proven material and techniques of extraoral implants. The significant improvement extra-oral implants have brought about is not only in a new therapeutic approach to the treatment of important facial defects or transmission deafness; it is also because for some twenty old years now, the few millimeter wide cylinders of Titanium, the < > affixed on the implants, have crossed the cutaneous barrier for extended periods without complications. The percutaneous abutment thus creates a permanent communication between the interior and the exterior of the organism. If the abutment, instead of simply carrying a Maxillo-Facial Prosthesis or an auditive prosthesis, is modified by placing an electric conductor inside it, the simple "percutaneous peg" will turn out to be, in a way, a "percutaneous electric plug". By adapting classic "mechanical" abutments and implants, authors have created a Permanent Percutaneous Electric Connection (PPEC) which has been successfully experimented on rabbits to record EEG. Clinical applications on humans would make it possible either to receive "bio-electrical information" coming from within the organism, or to send electrical energy into the organism. This last application opens vast perspectives of improvement both in diagnosis and therapy in many fields.