Anodic oxidation could be employed to produce crystalline titania films on Ti6Al4 V surfaces for inducing apatite formation in simulated body fluid (SBF). In this work, the effect of further heat treatment on the bioactivity of anodic titania films was researched. The surface constitution, morphology, crystal structure and apatite-forming ability of titania films were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results indicated the apatite formation on the Ti6Al4 V surfaces could be attributed to abundance of Ti-OH groups formed via anodic oxidation, but subsequent heat treatment would decrease the amount of surface hydroxyl (OH) groups and result in the loss of the apatite-forming ability. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.