[Burrs breaking in oral surgery: a experimental study].
BACKGROUND
This experimental work came out from clinic observations. The deal is to check the factors that can provoke the fracture of the more commonly in oral surgery used burrs, and then reduce the correlated risks to this event. Besides a fracture surface characterisation is done to point out the presence of production and/or stoking defects that can alter the structure.


METHODS
Four batches of new surgical burrs (type Lindemann) were examined for a total of 40 samples. The first batch was used as control, the other three were submitted to 5, 10 and 20 sterilisation cycles respectively. Before each cycle disinfectant washing was done. All the samples were then mechanical tested (four point bending test) for the determination of the ultimate tension strength. The fracture surfaces were observed at SEM; a comparison with that of burrs broken during surgery operations was done.


RESULTS
The new burrs did not show working defects. The washing and sterilisation processes did not provoke any corrosion attack.


CONCLUSIONS
No significant differences among the batches were detected from the mechanical tests as well as from micrographic observations.
Maglione
M
M
Dipartimento di Scienze Chirurgiche Specialistiche, Università degli Studi, Trieste, Italy.
Biasotto
M
M
Scuor
N
N
Schmid
C
C
D004868:Equipment Failure; D019647:Oral Surgical Procedures / Q000295:instrumentation*