Carbide

Introduction: Dental burs are among the most commonly used instruments in dental offices
and have the most possible cross-contamination risks. The sterilization of dental burs is highly
noted and necessary. The present study evaluated the effects of different sterilization methods
on the uniformity of diamond dental burs and changes in the cuting edge carbide burs.
Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, to assess the results of sterilization, 36
burs (18 diamond burs and 18 carbide burs) were studied. In total, 18 diamond burs using R
software were randomly divided into the 3 groups of 6 burs (dry-clave group, autoclave group,
and cold sterilization group). Each group was divided into the 2 subgroups of 3 burs; the first
subgroup received 5 cycles and the second subgroup received 15 cycles of sterilization. The
same process was used for 18 carbide burs to categorize them into groups and subgroups. A
pre-assessment was conducted by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). After the sterilization
cycles, a post-test SEM was performed. Adobe Photoshop 2017 was used in a gray scale of
12 to compare the pre-test and post-test differences. Kruskal-Wallis test, Analysis of Variance,
Mann-Whitney U test, and Post Hoc Tukey test were used to analyze the obtained data in SPSS
at a significance level of P=0.05.
Results: Dry-clave was the best approach in 5 cycles of sterilization for diamond and carbide
burs. Moreover, autoclave was the best method for 5 cycles of sterilization (P<0.05). In 15
cycles of sterilization of diamond and carbide burs, the best method was auto-clave which
exhibited a significant difference in carbide burs.
Conclusion: Dry-clave and autoclave were the most appropriate approaches for 5 and 15
cycles of sterilization of diamond burs, respectively. In sterilization of carbide, in both 5 and
15 cycles, autoclave was the best method. All of the sterilization methods caused corrosion,
discoloration, and the loss of integrity in carbide burs; however, these changes were minimum
in the autoclave method. In conclusion, auto-clave method is recommended due to causing the
least changes in carbide and diamond burs.