Inventive Methods Used to Study and Control Thermal Necrosis A Review

摘要

Orthopedic surgeries use screw and plate fixations. Bone drilling is performed for smooth and minimum damage to bone surfaceduring screw insertion. Bone drilling creates a hole with circular cross-section. This process involves cutting and material removalwith a helical drill tool. Heat is generated at the drilling site due to cutting, shearing of bone material by drill tool and friction betweendrill tool and bone surface. Previous research studies found that if temperature at drilling site reaches 47°C and remains the samefor one minute, irreversible cell damage i.e. thermal necrosis can occur. Thermal necrosis causes ring sequestrum around the pin;this leads to a vicious cycle involving secondary infection, discharge and pin loosening. This postoperative complication can only berectified by removal of pin and sequestrum, curettage of the tract and pin replacement and so thermal necrosis- the root cause mustbe avoided and attended very seriously. To avoid thermal necrosis, postoperative complications and delay in patient rehabilitation,researchers are studying bone drilling in detail. In this review paper, a discussion is made on different innovative methods that areturning points in the study of thermal necrosis and the latest technologically improved equipment devised by researchers. Theseinventive methods have used experimental set ups, software-based simulations and training programs. The author also conductedexperiments on female goat rib bone and based on these observations an improved drilling machine is suggested.