The investigations of carbon coatings intended for tools used in bone surgery

摘要

An operational surgical instrumentarium is the special group of medical instruments. This group is characterised by an irregular and diverse intensity of use. Furthermore, because of a work in a chemically active environment (body fluids, drugs) it is necessary to sterilise them after each use. The mentioned working conditions of the surgical instrumentarium determine the selection of materials that should ensure reliable utilisation. The main group of metallic materials applied in surgical instrumentarium are martensitic steels [1-3]. The main group of tools used in surgical operations are cutting tools. The most frequent used belong to mul-tiedge tools. This group contains among other things surgical drills and screw taps. These tools are mainly used during osteosynthesis treatments. In clinical practice, insufficient service life of drills is often observed. Appropriate quality of surgical instrumentarium significantly influences the quality of surgical procedures with use of different construction of implants [4]. Therefore, the main aim of the work was the evaluation of DLC carbon coatings for the improvement of functional properties surgical tools made of martensitic steels.